


The Changing Lights

by lazywonderland



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Bottom Draco, F/M, Female Draco Malfoy, Fluff, Gender Dysphoria, Genderswap, Het, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Era, Hung Harry Potter, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, POV Alternating, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Pseudo-Female Draco, Smut, Top Harry, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 21:53:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 130,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11518236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazywonderland/pseuds/lazywonderland
Summary: Harry returns for an eighth year following the end of the war and soon realizes that although he's put his own animosity towards Malfoy aside, no one else seems to have done the same. When a hex leaves his oldest rival in the body of a female and ridicule doubles, Harry discovers that his hero complex is a difficult thing to fight.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [The Changing Lights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643499) by [katie_ming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katie_ming/pseuds/katie_ming)



> As a forewarning, although this is a totally typical Drarry love story, it will contain quite a bit of het-smut due to the hex cast on Draco. I intend to explore the emotional, mental, and physical changes he'll experience in that unwarranted transition (while retaining his gender identity and pronouns), as well as the part Harry will play in it, so even if het isn't typically your thing, I encourage you to give this a try!
> 
> **Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.**

 

 **“** _My cards are on the table, I'm here tonight_  
_But I don't need anything from you_  
_Down on the bowery, the changing lights_  
_And I'll still be waiting here for you_   **”**

**\- Broken Bells**

 

***  *  ***

 

Harry Potter — The Boy Who Lived Not Just Once but Twice — was going back to Hogwarts for a make-up seventh year. The news was all over the headlines, splashed on the front of every _Prophet_ in big letters and bold font. The saviour of the Wizarding world, who had nobly spent a portion of his summer helping to rebuild those sections of Hogwarts which had been destroyed during the war, would be returning amongst a rather large group of his peers under the heading of “eighth-years,” and for a reason which Harry himself could not quite understand, it was all anybody could talk about.

He’d been able to avoid hearing _too_ much about it when he’d actually been on the grounds helping out, but much to his chagrin, the end of the war had brought about not the peace he’d anticipated, but a throng of interviews and meetings and trips to the Ministry. The relief was still there, of course — his scar never stung, a cloud of death no longer hovered just above his head, and despite the loss of so many friends and family, all anybody wanted to do was rejoice in the company of those who _had_ survived.

Still, interview after meeting after press conference after interview became tiresome, particularly to a boy who had never appreciated the spotlight in the first place. Yet Harry endured it, because that was what he did. That was what he had _always_ done; but finally, on the first of September, just four months after that bloody battle which had only solidified what seemed to be the eternal glory of Harry James Potter (whether he liked it or not), those meetings and interviews and photographs were left behind at King’s Cross, on the pavement of platform nine and three-quarters.

The students would talk, and he wasn’t dimwitted enough to think it wouldn’t be made a big deal of at the start-of-term banquet, but at least he’d be back at Hogwarts.

At least he’d be _home_ , and a few months into the school year, Harry had no doubt in his mind things would begin to fade back to normal — whatever that meant.

 

* * *

 

It looked just as it always had.

Sitting beside Ginny and across from Ron and Hermione in one of the carriages being led towards the castle by a couple Thestrals, Harry thought if he hadn’t known about — if he hadn’t been a _part_ of  _—_ the battle which had raged inside those walls and on the grounds surrounding it last May, he might not have known anything had happened at all. In spite of the sadness which gripped his heart at the sight, he was filled simultaneously with an overwhelming sense of gratitude, and for the first time in a _very_ long time, excitement. 

“Looks like nothing happened, doesn’t it?” Ron spoke, plucking the words directly out of Harry’s thoughts. His head was turned towards the castle, body twisted so he could get a good view out of the small carriage window, and the statement made both Ginny and Hermione look as well. Hermione appeared contemplative, while Ginny merely cuddled herself closer to Harry, who had an arm draped across her shoulders.

They hadn’t _officially_ gotten back together, but it certainly felt inevitable, and in all honesty, Harry appreciated Ginny’s willingness to let the pieces fall back into place in their own time. There was, after all, no rush these days.

The crowd seemed depressingly thin as they walked up the stairs leading to the oak front doors, making Harry think painfully of how many students had died trying to defend their school. It was Hermione who reminded him a whole fleet of first-years were in a boat with Hagrid at that very moment, almost as though she had lifted the top of his head off and peered at the thoughts swirling around inside.

More likely she had simply read what he was feeling on his face — she had become quite good at that.

As they stepped into the Great Hall, Harry saw a combination of familiar and unfamiliar faces; Snape’s old spot was conspicuously occupied by a bald professor with a thick beard circling his mouth, and as McGonagall had been made Headmistress, her old spot was also taken. McGonagall herself was sitting in the middle, where Dumbledore had always resided.

As Harry had predicted, once the first-years had been Sorted and seated, McGonagall made a special point to address the Battle of Hogwarts in her rather long-winded speech, singling Harry out and forcing him to endure a round of applause for which he put on a smile he’d been practicing all summer, although he couldn't have spoken to its authenticity.

“You _almost_ looked like you enjoyed that,” Ginny snickered, and this got a laugh out of Ron as well as a knowing smirk from Hermione. Neville, oblivious to Harry’s chagrin, had been clapping the loudest of anyone in the Hall, but Harry couldn’t find it within himself to be annoyed by it. A number of other Gryffindors — Dean and Seamus, namely — had taken it upon themselves to hoot and holler simply _because_ they knew how much it would irk him. But it hadn’t just been the Gryffindors; even the Slytherins had been clapping, save for a small few closest to the door, which Harry immediately identified as Malfoy, Zabini, Parkinson, Bulstrode, Goyle, and Nott. It didn’t bother him the way the applause did, but it did make him curious. After all, he’d vouched for them himself when the question of whether or not to let them return arose, and as for Malfoy … well, he would have been behind bars along with his father had Harry not personally attended the trial and spoken on that ungrateful prat’s behalf.

When dinner and dessert had been cleared away and the first-years had been collected by their respective House’s Prefects, the rest of the students were dismissed, and there was a great scraping of chairs and pounding of feet as everyone headed for the entrance hall at once. Harry and his friends lingered at the table to wait for the traffic jam to pass, and looking around the Hall, he saw that many of the other eighth-years had elected to the do the same.

“You know,” Ginny began, nodding inconspicuously towards the Slytherin table, “you would think some of them might at least _attempt_ to look a little bit less like a bunch of snakes considering they’re only here out of the goodness of Harry’s heart.”

Harry snorted derisively. “Think they’re probably bitter at the moment; don’t be too hard on ‘em, Gin, _most_ of them really didn’t have anything to do with it. It was their parents, not them."

“Except Malfoy,” Ron added helpfully, glaring across the room at the subdued blond in question and shaking his head. “Still don’t know what got into your head, mate. You did enough for that two-faced git when you saved him from the Fiendfyre.” A look from Hermione made Ron’s cheeks tinge with pink, and he added a mumbled “Just saying” under his breath.

Harry merely shrugged. He wasn’t sure himself why he’d personally vouched for his once arch-nemesis at Hogwarts, why he’d faced a trial as big as Draco Malfoy’s — the press, the interviews, the photographs — just to keep him out of Azkaban, and further, to allow him to come back to school and finish his education. That Dark Mark was still on his arm — it always would be — but all Harry could ever see was the face of a terrified child on the top of the Astronomy Tower who’d never in a million years have been able to do what Snape had stepped in to do for him. A child who’d been forced into Voldemort’s ranks, and furthermore, who’d not given Harry away when he’d been captured even though Harry knew in his gut Malfoy had known it was him kneeling on the floor of Malfoy Manor.

“It’s like Professor McGonagall said in her speech,” Hermione said as they finally stood up from the table, “the time for judgments and picking sides is over, Ron. We need to start putting the past behind us so we can begin the process of healing.”

Harry lagged a little bit behind the others, even Ginny, who had caught up with a friend from her own year. He looked again across the Hall towards the Slytherin table, and to his surprise, he found Malfoy looking back at him this time. The eye contact held for only a few seconds before Malfoy looked away, and by the time Harry had gotten to his dorm and climbed into bed, he’d forgotten about it entirely.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It took Harry even less time than he'd expected to get back into the swing of things — the professors made that terribly easy. Slughorn had come back to teach Potions, and that was all right, but because Professor McGonagall was now Headmistress, the students had a new Transfiguations teacher, Professor Cliodna Kettleburn, and she was nearly as strict as McGonagall had been. Harry supposed that was why she’d hired the woman. It was only the first week and so far they’d been given homework in each class, the worst of which was a full-blown essayfrom Kettleburn and a monumental amount of reading from Slughorn. Thursday afternoon, Hermione had scuttled away to the library to start on her essay as soon as they’d finished their last lesson of the day.

“Blimey,” Ron was saying, shaking his head after Hermione had planted a soft kiss on his cheek and told him she’d meet up with them in the common room later. “It’s like we never left, isn’t it? She’s right back at it; next thing you know she’ll have color-coded schedules for us again, eh, Harry?”

“We do have our N.E.W.T.s this year,” Harry reminded him, an amused grin on his face when Ron groaned. They’d begun walking in the direction of the stairs that would lead them up to the seventh floor, Ron’s shoulders drooping under an invisible weight.

“Don’t suppose we could play the ‘we-saved-all-your-arses-from-dictatorship-under-a-Dark-Lord’ card, do you?”

Harry laughed. “I somehow doubt it. And I’m pretty sure it was _me_ who saved all your arses — all you did was snog Hermione over an armful of Basilisk fangs." 

Ron elbowed Harry hard in the ribs, but the two of them were both laughing — it was the carefree laughter of kids at school with nothing more serious to worry about than the mounds of homework they’d been given, and for that, at least, Harry was grateful.

As they were passing Flitwick’s classroom in the Charms corridor, Harry saw students filing out the door with sour looks on their faces, and given that it was eighth-year Slytherins and Ravenclaws, he ascertained he would be wearing a similar expression when he left Charms tomorrow sagging under what he was certain would be another mountain of homework. 

“Oi,” Ron nudged him, gesturing with his chin in the direction of a small spectacle that Harry quickly realized involved Malfoy and another student whose name he didn’t know — a seventh-year, perhaps, judging by his size and vague familiarity. His robes bore Slytherin colors, and though he must have been younger than Malfoy, he was at least twice as big; Harry wasn’t surprised to see that in spite of the fact that the hulking figure had gotten Malfoy nearly pressed up against a wall, Malfoy was still sneering up at him in a way that invited nothing but trouble. “Looks like not even the Slytherins are happy to see _him_ back, eh? Even Zabini’s leaving!”

Harry saw that Ron was entirely right — Pansy Parkinson had stuck around, if only to nervously look on from the side, but all the other Slytherin eighth-years either didn’t care or weren’t in the mood to join in, even if it meant standing up for one of their own.

How _very_ Slytherin, Harry thought privately.

Ron wasn’t moving, probably because he wanted to see the show, but Harry had planted his feet for a different reason, and his hand had already moved to his wand. He may not have _liked_ Malfoy, but he hadn’t vouched for him just to watch him get bullied the whole school year.

“You shouldn’t’ve come back, Malfoy,” the blond’s tormentor growled, and when he stabbed Malfoy in the chest with his wand, Harry’s hand tightened on his own. "You should be rotting in Azkaban next to your murderer father."

Ron, beside him, seemed to have sensed Harry's posture.

“Harry, what’re you doing?” he hissed. “Don’t get in the middle of it, it isn’t your job —!”

“I’m not gonna let that kid _hurt_ him, Ron, I don’t care if it _is_ Malfoy, he —”

Harry’s sentence broke off when Malfoy pushed the larger boy’s chest in response to the wand that was being held on him, though it didn’t do much more than startle the other Slytherin and put an angrier look on his face. “Well I _did_ come back, Conway, so why don’t you shove off and take your ugly, trollish face somewhere that _I_ don’t have to look at it.” And with that, he wriggled free of the trap and began stalking in Harry’s and Ron’s direction. Harry was a little stunned to see that Malfoy’s head was down, and because of this he didn’t see whom he was walking towards.

He was maybe five feet away from them when Harry, who was on high alert, whipped out his wand only a millisecond later than the boy Malfoy had called Conway, but that millisecond was enough. He yelled _“Expelliarmus!”_ and the boy’s wand flew out of his hand, but not before a flash of purple light had shot out of the end and hit Malfoy squarely in the back, throwing him to the ground.

Everyone who had been watching came a bit closer and Harry saw Professor Flitwick come running out of his classroom just in time to hear Malfoy first begin moaning and then _howling_ with what sounded like excruciating pain. While everyone else only watched with wide eyes, Harry’s instinct had him on the ground with Flitwick beside Malfoy, turning him over only to see something horribly disturbing happening to his face: it looked like what Polyjuice Potion _felt_ like, Harry thought, watching with his jaw open as Malfoy’s face started slowly but very noticeably shifting, like the bones beneath it were rearranging themselves.

Flitwick didn’t have to say anything for Harry to spring into action, lifting Malfoy off the floor and running in the direction of the hospital wing while Flitwick followed, yelling “Out of the way! Out of the way!” as they went. Harry was so focused on getting to Madam Pomfrey that he didn’t notice it wasn’t only Malfoy’s face shifting underneath his pale skin, and once they _had_ gotten there, Madam Pomfrey took Malfoy and shooed Harry away.

He stood outside the Infirmary with his heart beating fast, feeling helpless now that there was no more he could do, and a little angry at himself for not having acted faster back there. But he supposed at the very worst, Malfoy would have to spend the night growing bones back or something the way Harry had done in his second year.

An hour later, settled into their familiar spots in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room, Harry and Ron were trying to describe what had happened to Hermione so she could figure out what hex had been used.

“Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard of,” she shrugged, looking upset by the fight that had happened within the first week, but much more interested in the notes she was taking out of an enormous, dusty old tome she’d checked out of the library. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. Maybe it’ll even teach Malfoy to try keeping his head down for once, especially seeing as he's particularly unpopular at the moment.”

With no definitive answer forthcoming, Harry and Ron both acquiesced to begin working on their homework, although they gave up after only an hour and a half and elected to play chess instead. It was, after all, only the end of the first week of term — there was no need to push themselves yet.

At a quarter past one in the morning, as Harry closed the curtains of his four-poster and lay his head down on the pillow, he thought again of Malfoy, and wondered if Madam Pomfrey had cured him yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	2. Chapter 2

For a full week, Harry didn’t spot Malfoy again in any of the classes they had together, nor in the hallways, nor even at meals. It was as though the hex had Vanished him completely, and the only reason Harry knew this not to be true was because on the Thursday that marked a week since the incident, he went to Madam Pomfrey himself to enquire after him. All Madam Pomfrey would tell him, however, was that Malfoy was alive and conscious, which, _true_ , was good to hear, but “alive and conscious” weren’t necessarily hopeful adjectives when the person in question had been absent from school for a week after being hexed in the back. He’d tried his hardest to wheedle more information out of her, but she’d sternly shooed him out of the Infirmary, thanking him again for having brought Malfoy to her in the first place and reminding him once again that that was where his involvement in the matter ceased.

At dinner that night, Harry had finally managed to stop thinking about it long enough to gorge himself on roasted turkey in preparation for the all-night study session Hermione had told him and Ron in no uncertain terms she’d be forcing them to attend beginning promptly at nine o’clock. Two weeks into term and somehow their N.E.W.T.s year was already proving to be twice, nay, _thrice_ as difficult and overwhelming as the year they’d taken their O.W.L.s. Every professor seemed to have forgotten the fact that theirs was not the only class, and hour by hour the homework was building up until Harry found himself wondering whether Hermione’s color-coded schedules might not be exactly what he’d wind up needing.

Feeling full and sleepy and wanting nothing more than to relax in the common room before hitting his four-poster early, Harry dragged his feet along behind Hermione out of the Great Hall with Ron in a similar state beside him. Ron shot him a miserable look, his eyes pleading, somehow, as though he thought Harry might be able to come up with a way to get them out of this.

Harry had been stretching his arms over his head and yawning unashamedly when there came a dig to his ribs and his arms promptly fell, one hand going to the sore spot it had left while he turned to glare at Ron.

“The hell was that for?”

“It’s Malfoy!” Ron whispered loudly, and not only did Harry forget about the pain in his ribs to frantically search the entrance hall, but this seemed to have gotten Hermione’s attention, as well.

He wasn’t difficult to spot — for Harry, he never _had_ been, and Harry didn’t quite know whether that was just him or if _everybody’s_ eyes always inevitably found that shining head of platinum blond hair in a crowd.

“Oh … wait,” came Ron’s confused voice, and beside him, Harry was similarly lost for words. It had certainly looked like Malfoy from the back, except when he turned around, Harry knew right away that they were mistaken. _“He”_ was the wrong pronoun, that was the first problem — despite the short hair that resembled Draco Malfoy’s identically, and despite the pointy features and grey eyes and the ghost of a familiar sneer on a mouth whose lips were just a little bit fuller than Harry remembered Malfoy’s being, it simply _couldn’t_ be Malfoy, because it was a _girl_. “What the bloody hell …”

“Oh my goodness,” Harry heard Hermione breathe, and if he’d been able to form words, he might have told her that this was a drastically under-exaggerated reaction. The girl with Malfoy’s hair and a radically more feminine face was wearing robes that were far too big for her, and she was standing beside Pansy Parkinson, who was shooting death-glares at anybody walking by who stared too long. Malfoy — or whoever was wearing Malfoy’s robes — had their head down and was fiddling anxiously with their fingers in front of them.

He’d always been bullheaded, but Harry liked to think that he usually had at least a smidgen more tact than Ron did; if this was true, however, it abandoned him completely when suddenly he was crossing the entrance hall in great strides towards Pansy and whoever the _hell_ that was supposed to be that she was talking to.

“Malfoy?” he said loudly, and to his utter astonishment, the girl in the oversized robes with the short blonde hair looked up at him for the space of a second before allowing Pansy to drag her away, but not before Harry had made eye contact. And in that moment — that fleeting _second_ — he was able to ascertain one thing: that was _definitely_ Malfoy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was eleven o’clock, and as planned, Hermione had a book open in front of her. What _hadn’t_ been planned was the subject of the book, which was not Arithmancy, or Ancient Runes, or even Potions — it was an enormous book on hexes, and beside it, a rifled-through tome on human transfiguration that had been no help at all.

“I don’t get it,” Ron said, shaking his head in utter bewilderment as he watched Hermione continue flipping through the pages of the book, stopping here and there to read a likely-looking passage. “Why couldn’t Madam Pomfrey reverse whatever that hex did?”

“I wanna know how that seventh-year knew a fucking hex like that,” Harry said, chiming in for the first time in a while. He’d been deep in thought ever since he’d seen Malfoy in the entrance hall, and it wasn’t only distant interest in the situation that was holding onto his attention like some sort of particularly nasty Devil’s Snare. It was all anybody else could talk about as well, of course, but Harry’s curiosity felt different than theirs, though he couldn’t find a good way to put that feeling into words.

“That’s exactly what I’m interested in,” said Hermione, flipping yet another page and leaning forward to read a bit of small text. “I’ve never even _heard_ of such a thing, a hex that can change someone’s gender. It’s possible, of course, that it’s only Malfoy’s bone structure that’s changed, you know, I mean, I can’t possibly imagine there’s a spell in the _world_ that could physically alter a person’s gender completely.”

Harry felt two spots of heat light up his cheeks and he looked over at Ron to see the same had happened to him. Even in all his musings in the past few hours Harry’s mind hadn’t actually gone …  _there_. He was deathly curious about just how far the hex had gone, _yes_ , but until Hermione had put it so clinically, he hadn’t actually thought about … well …

“You don’t mean to say …” Ron began slowly, looking at Harry with wide eyes and then back to Hermione. “I mean, d’you really think Malfoy’s — er — bits 'n' pieces are …" 

Hermione, ignoring Ron’s awkward mumblings and still staring down at her book, said in a perfectly calm tone of voice: “Well, his robes did look much too big on him, and if the rearrangement of his facial structure is anything to go by, I’d have to say there’s at least a chance the rest of his body was affected in the same way.” She looked up, and when she saw Harry’s and Ron’s red cheeks she rolled her eyes. “ _Really_ , are you this immature? To be quite honest, if the hex had been _that_ thorough I don’t see why they wouldn’t have sent him to St. Mungo’s.”

“So … what?” Harry asked, leaning forward in his chair and glancing at the page in the book Hermione had stopped on. “You think because he’s still here it’s probably just his bones?" 

Hermione shrugged. “I think maybe it affected his body's bone-structure and most likely that’s all it did. If Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey saw fit to release him from the Infirmary and rejoin the rest of the school, it can hardly be anything permanent, anyway.

“Now, that’s enough of that.” She closed the book on hexes and set it aside. “You _both_ need to get started on your Transfiguration essays.”

Harry and Ron groaned simultaneously, and at least for the moment, the subject of Malfoy and his new body stayed on the back-burner of Harry’s mind. 

 

 

* * *

  

 

It felt reminiscent of sixth-year in a way that both amused Harry and disturbed him greatly. 

He woke up Friday morning thinking of Malfoy. He thought about him all throughout breakfast (and even stole a glance at the Slytherin table, only to find that Malfoy was conspicuously absent). He thought about him in Charms class, which they had with the Hufflepuffs, and he continued thinking about him right up until Potions, which he’d never before been _glad_ to have with the Slytherins.

But Harry was deadly curious to get a better look, to have an entire double Potions class to take it in, and while a part of him felt bad, knew that Malfoy must feel like some kind of animal at the zoo, Harry managed to (quite selfishly) assuage this guilt by reminding himself of the utter torture Malfoy had put him through for five solid years, not to mention the fact that Harry himself felt much like he was an attraction every time he went out in public.

He, Ron, and Hermione walked into the classroom behind Theodore Nott and Tracey Davis, and it took no time at all for Harry to spot Malfoy sitting next to Blaise Zabini, by themselves. He wanted desperately to ask Hermione what she thought of this arrangement, but knew better than to do so within earshot of the Slytherins.

Harry also knew better than to continue glancing at Malfoy all throughout the lesson, but it didn’t keep him from doing so, even when Hermione furiously whispered under her breath at him to _quit it_. He simply couldn’t help himself — not only was it strange beyond comparison to see a female version of Draco Malfoy chopping up valerian root and boomslang skin, but he’d begun taking a mental inventory of all the things he was noticing. 

The first was that, whatever had happened to the rest of his body, Malfoy’s face looked … well, it looked _nice_ with this new bone structure. He’d always been a little bit effeminate, maybe, but the change had accentuated his high, aristocratic cheek bones and rounded off the square line of his jaw, making his features a little bit less sharp yet still somehow characteristically pointy, perhaps because his nose hadn’t changed one bit. And his lips, which Harry had already noticed the day before, were fuller and yet just as pouty as ever. This was all in conjunction with the much more immediately-noticeable difference in size, for Malfoy had always been about an inch or two taller than Harry, yet it was now abundantly clear that were they standing beside one another, Harry would be the one to have that extra height. Yet for all this, he still seemed to be wearing his old school robes, because they looked comically big and effectively made it impossible to discern the shape of anything underneath (which, Harry realized, was probably the point).

“Harry, for _goodness_ sake, you’re pulverizing that valerian root.” Harry looked down in time to see Hermione snatching the plant in question away from him, Ron snickering beside her until she directed a nasty look his way. “ _Stop_ staring,” she whispered fiercely when she turned back to Harry, sharply setting a fresh root in front of him. “Do you want to pass this class or not? I was under the impression you wanted to be an Auror.” 

“I do,” he sighed, taking one last glance at Malfoy before shaking his head, as though he could get rid of the thoughts the same way he could dislodge an irksome fly. “It’s just distracting, y’know? I mean, he’s a _girl_ , ‘Mione. That Slytherin the other day, he really turned him into a _girl_.”

“And that’s Malfoy’s business,” she said with an eyebrow raised, reminding him forcibly of Mrs. Weasley. “ _Yours_ is finishing this potion before class ends in forty-five minutes.”

And finish the potion he did, though it looked much darker than the textbook said it should have, certainly not the crystal clear, pellucid blue that was bubbling happily inside Hermione’s cauldron. The problem was that even though he’d heeded Hermione’s warning and stopped glancing over at Malfoy every few minutes, Harry’s mind was completely occupied by him.

It went on this way all throughout the weekend and into the following week; Harry would see him around the castle and remind himself not to stare, not to approach, and after all, this _was_ still Malfoy, whether he looked like a male or a female. This was difficult to believe sometimes with his trademark sneer replaced by an almost tangible insecurity, yet the sneer never disappeared completely, and it was in those moments that Harry found it easiest to remember who he was and ignore him.

It was Wednesday when he finally lost the struggle over his own self-control, and it was because Harry Potter was and always _had_ been helpless to abstain from what Ron called his saving-people-thing and Hermione had rather clinically diagnosed a hero complex, something that never failed to irk Harry greatly. 

He’d been in the library with Ginny, though they hadn’t really been studying. With her, it had always been about more than just their romantic or sexual relationship, and that was what he’d come to love so much about her. They could just _talk_ — for hours on end they could seamlessly flow from one topic to another, from laughter to gossip to more serious topics; nothing between them had ever been uncomfortable, and for that Harry was eternally grateful. Ginny had only left when she’d told him she was supposed to be meeting up with her Herbology partner to check on their project in the greenhouse, and Harry had packed up all his books (none of which had been cracked) with the intention of grabbing his broom and hitting the Quidditch pitch for the first time all year. He’d recently been contemplating asking Madam Hooch for his spot back as Captain, and if he _was_ going to do so, he thought it was only appropriate he brushed up on his skills beforehand.

Leaving his school robes behind in the dorm, Harry went out to the pitch clad in a pair of denims and an old t-shirt that was just a little bit small on him these days. All the work he’d done on Hogwarts over the summer had apparently paid off, the short sleeves of the tee hugging his biceps in a way they certainly never had before. That, and the fact that for the first time ever he'd spent a summer having enough food to eat at all times.

He noticed these things with a sort of clinical detachment, not proud of himself for the size of his arms but rather noting it as a fact: he’d always been a little bit scrawny, and now puberty was changing that. An interesting observation and nothing much more.

As a present to himself on his birthday, he’d bought a new broom before coming to Hogwarts this year. It was the newest model available, the Moonraker, and it had been expensive indeed. As was usually the case when Harry spent large sums of money, he had to fight back a habitual sense of guilt that he supposed had something to do with the time he’d spent living with the Dursleys.

The broom felt so _right_ between his legs, and when he pushed off the ground and the wind blew his hair back from his forehead, a brilliant grin lit up Harry’s face. He didn’t stop until he felt the moisture of a low-hanging cloud on his arms and his glasses fogged up, and then he sat there contentedly, breathing in the fresh air and letting the cool serenity of the moment wash over him.

No Voldemort, he liked to remind himself sometimes. 

No obligations. 

No war.

Sometimes, for a reason Harry absolutely could not understand and refused to mention to Hermione (or anyone else for that matter), these thoughts made him anxious. 

Right now, however, was not one of those times. 

With another gulping lungful of high-altitude air, Harry pointed the broom back down and sped toward the earth like he was after a Snitch in a tied game against Slytherin, when that little flicker of gold was life or death and nothing — absolutely _nothing_ outside of the Quidditch pitch — held any significance whatsoever.

He pulled out of the dive perhaps five feet from the ground in a maneuver that would have sent the stands into wild fits of cheering, and Harry smiled just thinking about it, knowing that it was only ever during a Quidditch match that he _enjoyed_ the sound of people clapping for him.

When he looked over at the stands, his smile was wiped away so quickly it might never have been there in the first place.

Malfoy was sitting there, and he wasn’t hidden beneath that circus tent of a school uniform, either. And _Merlin_ , it was really quite difficult to think of him as a _him_ suddenly.

At least one of Harry’s questions was answered right on the spot: he couldn’t say anything about whatever had happened down below, but it was ever so clear in a plain, button-up dress shirt and a pair of slacks that whatever hex Malfoy had been hit with, it had given him breasts along with his new face. They weren’t _big_ , not by any means, but they were certainly there, all right, and Harry couldn’t make heads or tails of the complicated emotions making his gut twist. 

Malfoy merely stared at him, and after a few moments of this it was Harry who finally flew over and landed beside him in the stands, windblown and confused and more curious than he’d ever been in his whole life.

“Did you have something to _say_ , Scarhead, or was it your plan to stand there looking like a vapid tree frog with a fat head?”

Harry blinked owlishly, dazed by the juxtaposition of words that were so utterly Malfoy coming out of a _girl_ who looked like she might have been his twin, with a voice that was still his own but a couple octaves higher. He looked awkward for what Harry suspected was the first time in his life, dressed in traditional menswear with a traditionally men’s haircut, yet with the petite, curvy body of a woman and a set of breasts that were noticeable even beneath the loose shirt.

“It really is you,” Harry said stupidly, and the eye roll he received in response was only further confirmation of this fact.

“Of course it’s me, you absolute bellend. Everyone tells me it was _you_ who rushed me off to Madam Pomfrey like the big, glorious saviour of the world that you are, or don’t you remember?” He was gesturing with his hands, and Harry noticed that the once slim, aristocratic fingers of Draco Malfoy were exactly the same except a little bit smaller and a little bit more delicate (a _very_ little bit, he noted wryly).

Setting his broom aside, Harry sat down cautiously beside the blond, noting with interest that Malfoy’s cheeks adopted a tinge of pink that was somehow endearing — and that was where he stopped himself.

In the body of a woman or not, Draco Malfoy was not _endearing_.

“Well I couldn’t know for sure until you said something scathing and insulted me, could I?” Harry quipped with a raised brow, finding it much easier to accept this as _Malfoy_ after having heard that snarky tone of voice. He was satisfied to see that the flush on Malfoy’s cheeks darkened. Knowing it was tactless, knowing Hermione would just about lose her mind if she heard it, Harry found himself asking anyway, “Madam Pomfrey couldn’t do anything?”

Malfoy’s jaw clenched visibly and she —  _he_ — looked away from Harry, who noticed from this vantage point that his golden eyelashes were both thicker and longer than they used to be.

Or perhaps he'd just never noticed them before.

“Oh, of _course_ she could have,” he drawled, “the reversal is really not very complicated at all, I simply _chose_ to stay trapped inside the body of a bloody _woman_.” And to Harry’s utter astonishment, he saw that Malfoy’s steely grey eyes were now swimming with unshed tears. He dragged his arm across them almost defiantly, like even _he_ couldn’t believe he was beginning to cry, and then turned to Harry with an expression that was as cold and unforgiving as the winter winds that plagued Hogwarts in February. Harry’s stomach twisted, and he felt his throat tighten with another emotion he couldn’t identify. “You’ve had your look, Potter, would you mind _buggering_ off now?”

“I didn’t come to _look_ , Malfoy,” he said sheepishly, but Malfoy was already standing up, slacks loose on his new frame, shirt baggy but unable to hide the shape of the breasts underneath it.

“No, of course not, you just came to make sure it really was _me_.”

Harry sighed, raking a hand through his untamed hair in a gesture of frustration that always gave him away.

“Malfoy, look, I —”

But Malfoy was apparently already finished with the conversation, because he gave Harry another horribly stony stare. “Just don’t, Potter.” The tears were there again, still being held back but shimmering noticeably in his eyes, and Harry felt a very familiar sense of helplessness that always plagued him in situations he couldn’t control. “For once in your life, keep your enormous head _out_ of my business, and leave me the bloody hell alone.”

Harry stood now too, dazed by how much taller he was, taken aback by how undeniably … well, _pretty_ Malfoy looked in the glow of the westering sun, with his grey eyes shimmering and his full lower lip pooched into what was probably an unconscious pout.

“I was only going to say that I’d, you know, be happy to help you do some research if you wanted. And …” He paused, not sure how to go about saying the next part: “Well, I know people have been sort of …  _pestering_ you. Not just now,” he added quickly, “but, I mean, since the beginning of the year, even. I could say something if you want. You know, to McGonagall, ask her to enforce a —”

“ _What_ did I just say, Potter?” Malfoy cut him off, arms crossing over his chest like he was trying to fold in on himself, and it was so uncharacteristic that Harry felt a pang of deep pity make his chest feel momentarily hollow. And, somehow, coexisting with this pity was a frustration that made him clench his teeth.

“I know what you said.” He kept his voice calm, not in the least surprised that even under these unbelievable circumstances — even after he’d _sworn_ to himself before term had even started that he wouldn’t get into fights with Malfoy this year — the blond was managing to rile him up in one way or another. “And _I’m_ trying to say that I can at least do something to help so you don’t have to constantly watch your back everywhere you go —”

“I’m perfectly _capable_ of watching my back!” Malfoy shouted, and now Harry saw that one single tearslipped out and made a shimmery trail down one soft-looking, pale cheek. Without warning, he reached out with both arms and shoved Harry in the chest, managing to make him stumble backward purely because he’d been taken by surprise.

Harry’s eyes widened, and although his initial instinct was to hit back — to punch Malfoy, _boy_ Malfoy, right in his arrogant face — he quickly overcame that urge and balled his fists at his sides instead, knowing there wasn’t a chance in hell he was about to hit a girl, real or hexed. Malfoy must have figured out why Harry wasn’t fighting back, and this seemed to push him over some invisible edge, one that Harry guessed he’d probably been toeing the line of since the day he’d been trapped inside this female body.

It felt peculiarly satisfying to know he was still able to get beneath Malfoy’s skin that way without even trying.

Malfoy shoved him again.

“Hit me back, Potter!”

“I’m not hitting you, Malfoy,” Harry said softly, reaching for his Moonraker and giving Malfoy a long, searching look. He’d always hated it when Cho had cried. That was something he’d always loved so much about Ginny, that she _didn’t_ get overly emotional about such seemingly small things.

But that was just it: this _wasn’t_ a small thing, and it was no wonder Malfoy’s tears didn’t make Harry feel uncomfortable, but instead sad, frustrated that he wasn’t being allowed to help. 

“Because I’m a girl?” Malfoy questioned sharply, but the effect was ruined by the wet quality of his voice. For a long moment, Harry didn’t answer him, and Malfoy didn’t move as he waited for one.

“I told you how I can help,” Harry said finally, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m not fighting with you.” 

“Had no problem slicing me open, though, two years ago, did you?”

This stung, and Harry balled up his fists again, noting that Malfoy’s chest began rising and falling more rapidly, like he thought he might have finally provoked Harry into doing it, _hitting_ him.

“I hated you sixth year,” he answered monotonously, biting back the _“and you were about to torture me”_ that wanted to follow. Malfoy scowled.

“And now?”

Again, Harry shrugged. He'd been searching for that answer himself just lately and still hadn't found one.

“Let me know if you want my help, Malfoy.”

He draped a leg over his broom and pushed off the stands, not knowing what in the hell had just transpired. Knowing only that if Malfoy wasn’t going to _let_ him help, Harry was going to find a way to do it anyhow.

And that if someone had asked him why, he wouldn’t have been able to give them a straight answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	3. Chapter 3

Several days passed, and in that time, Harry didn’t speak to Malfoy, but he did watch from afar as a subtle change took place.

For one, he stopped wearing the oversized robes. Harry didn’t know if Malfoy had finally given in or if it had simply taken some time for the new ones to arrive. He suspected that Malfoy had waited to order them until the very last second, until he knew _for sure_ , knowing that’s exactly what he would have done in the same situation.

His hair was styled differently, too, perhaps having let Parkinson do it for him. Whatever the case, it was a bit more feminine, pixie-looking, and suited his bone structure.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to think of him as a boy, and this was the part that was causing Harry the most confusion. He wondered whether everyone else felt as dazed and intrigued by the whole thing as he did, but got the impression that it wasn’t so. In fact, everyone else seemed to have taken it as a go-ahead to double the harassment.

He heard the ridicule. The gossip. The snickering behind hands, even the catcalling from some of the blokes. What Harry _didn’t_ see was any sign of physical bullying, but from experience knew that the emotional torment was usually much worse.

Not to mention the inner turmoil Malfoy must have been going through without the added stress of being gawked at by everyone who walked past him.

Knowing it was unfair but doing it anyway out of a selfishly curious desire to see Malfoy again, Harry gave Ron, Hermione, and Ginny the excuse that he was going to take a walk around the school for old-time’s sake around eleven when the Map (which he’d been periodically and inconspicuously checking) showed him that Malfoy was no longer in the Slytherin dungeon, but had moved to the Prefects’ bathroom on the fifth floor, and appeared to be alone.

Taking his Cloak with him and using the Map as an extra precaution to avoid running into anybody, Harry only shed it once he’d stepped inside the humid air of the mammoth bathroom, seeing that the tub was filled with steaming water, yet remained empty.

The sole occupant stood in front of one of the mirrors, shirtless and wearing what looked like a very expensive, silky green brassiere. Harry, turning immediately red at the sight of so much exposed pale skin and undeniably appealing curves, managed to shield his eyes with a hand and turn away just as Malfoy spun around and spotted him with a gasp. 

“Potter!” he screeched, alarmingly high-pitched, and Harry heard the fumbling for clothes, only looking up again when he was sure Malfoy had covered up. As an afterthought, it occurred to him he'd neglected to think about the fact that he wasn't barging into a bathroom on a  _boy_ Malfoy anymore. “What are you doing here! Merlin's bloody _beard_ , can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I come here when I can’t sleep,” he bit back, sounding for all the world as though this was the god’s honest truth. It was habitual, after all, engaging Malfoy in a defensive manner. Knowing it was childish, knowing deep down Malfoy deserved this time alone, Harry defiantly toed off his trainers anyway. His fringe had already begun sticking to his forehead from the humidity, and when he looked up again, his glasses were beginning to fog up.

The shirt Malfoy was wearing was a plain, lilac-colored tee, but it fit nicely, not like the button-up he’d been wearing the other day whose sleeves had nearly engulfed Malfoy’s hands. Covering his bottom was a pair of shorts that did two things: first, they exposed Harry to the fact that Malfoy's new, shapely legs seemed to go on for miles; second, and most importantly, they answered Harry's second question:

As Ron had so eloquently stuttered the other day, Malfoy's bits and pieces  _were_ , in fact, gone.

“I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” he continued, using every ounce of will power he possessed not to stare ... and this, at least, was honest. He couldn't actually remember the last time he'd had a decent night's sleep. He wondered suddenly why he hadn't thought of coming here before. “I just came to take a bath.” 

“Well _clearly_ the tub is already occupied,” Malfoy sneered, hands going to his hips in a gesture that was so authentically feminine it had Harry smiling without even realizing he was doing so. “Something _funny_ , Potter?”

“No,” Harry replied quickly, but the grin didn’t entirely leave his face. With the initial shock of the whole thing beginning to fade (and in spite of these new ...  _interesting_ discoveries), he was finding it all too easy to slip back into the petty banter the two had shared for so long, before the pettiness had turned into something much deeper, and much darker. The thought made Harry’s eyes jump down to Malfoy’s left arm, where the Dark Mark — unaware of its master’s defeat, unaware of its owner’s anatomical shift — was still black as death on that pale skin. “I was only thinking how convenient it is you’d already filled the tub for me.”

Malfoy’s mouth dropped open to Harry’s utter delight, and because it was just too much fun crawling beneath Malfoy’s skin and watching him squirm, Harry pulled off his own shirt, unbelted his denims, and tossed both to the side, leaving him in a pair of plain black boxers, cotton as opposed to the silk he'd seen Malfoy wearing before he'd put his shirt back on. 

“Potter, you’re a cretin,” Malfoy snipped, turning his face away and staring up at the ceiling, as though _anything_ was better than having to look at a half-naked Harry Potter. The blush on his newly girlish cheeks was more than enough proof Harry had gotten to him.

“And _you’re_ no good at sharing,” Harry fired back, an eyebrow raised as he went over to the tub and sat down at the edge, dangling his feet in the water. Malfoy made a breathy sound of irritation that did more than just tickle Harry’s funny bone — a tightening in his lower belly startled him, but he managed not to let _how_ startling it was show on his face. 

It was one thing to acknowledge, objectively, as a simple statement of fact, that Malfoy was pretty as a girl.

It was _bad enough_ to have found something he’d done endearing on the pitch the other day.

But it was absolutely, unequivocally  _unacceptable_ to be even remotely attracted to him.

“Why can’t you just _leave_ and find someone else to bother with your devastating war hero insomnia?”

“Why can’t _you_ just let me help you do some research? Let me help you take care of everyone who’s been harassing you the last two weeks —?”

“Because it’s none of your goddamned business, Potter!” Malfoy’s voice had reached an even higher octave in his hysterics, but it finally sobered Harry up from the teasing lilt that had crept into his voice, and he looked down at his hands in his lap, silent now and a little bit abashed. “I do have a _couple_ friends left, in case you’d forgotten, _not_ to mention the fact I’m perfectly capable of doing research myself and I _hardly_ think that if Madam Pomfrey _and_ a team of professionals at St. Mungo’s haven’t discovered a solution yet that a dim-witted, blundering, idiot Gryffindor like yourself is going to pull a miracle out of his arse.” Harry looked up at him again, but he didn’t say anything, only waited for the rest that he knew was coming. “And as for _defending_ me, as I told you before just the other day since you seem to have _conveniently_ forgotten, I don’t _need_ your help. Not _everyone_ needs you to save them, Potter. _Especially_ not me.”

Harry pulled himself back up onto his feet, shins dripping warm water and bubbles onto the tiled marble floor, and went over to Malfoy, still mesmerized by the difference in height, and he could see something both uneasy and defiant flicker across Malfoy’s face as well when he had to look _up_ to meet Harry’s eyes.

“You did once,” he said quietly, not entirely sure what he was doing, why it mattered, why he was so unbearably intrigued by this new Malfoy, and why he couldn’t leave him alone like he’d asked. He saw recognition flit across those hard grey eyes and watched as they filled with resentment, knowing perfectly well what Harry was referring to. “You _let_ me save you once.”

“You’re a right prick, Potter,” Malfoy bit out, but when he tried to walk away, Harry grabbed hold of his slim forearm and held him back. Malfoy turned back to him with a dangerous look on his face, like a snake who’d had its tail snatched.

“Why do you still hate me?”

This seemed to have caught Malfoy off guard, because the venomous expression was replaced by one of defensive perplexity. After a few moments where Harry kept expecting him to storm off, the words that came out of his mouth in that new, feminine voice were harder than steel.

“Because you haven’t changed a bit.” Harry’s eyebrows dipped, and when Malfoy tugged his arm back, Harry let him, much too aware of the fact that he could easily have held on if he'd wanted. “You’ve never saved anyone because it was the right thing to do, Potter. You do it because you can’t _help_ yourself. Because you _love_ to be the hero, even if you've managed to persuade yourself otherwise.” He took a few steps back, looking up into Harry’s eyes again, and Harry felt his stomach jolt. “Can you honestly tell me that you’ve been dying to help me out of the pure, unadulterated, _altruistic_  goodness of your utterly selfless heart? Or are you exactly as curious as everybody else is, but have yourself convinced that the _Chosen One_ can’t possibly have anything less than noble intentions?”

“Both,” Harry said smoothly after a moment, gaze unwavering where they were stuck on Malfoy’s. This answer seemed to startle Malfoy as much as his earlier question had. “I _was_ curious at first, who wouldn't be? But once I talked to you on the pitch, once I realized it’s really still just _you_ in a different-looking body, I dunno …” He shrugged and let out a humorless laugh. “I just wanna help, Malfoy. I know you think humans are incapable of doing things for other people without having ulterior motives and selfish intentions, but I swear to you, that's all I want. Even if that just means, you know, hanging out, or whatever. Talking. I never offered to defend you because I thought you weren’t capable of doing it yourself, I offered because that’s what I would have done for anyone in your situation. This year is supposed to be about unity and forgiveness, right? Well, there’s nothing more unifying than helping an old enemy out in a sticky situation.” 

“This isn’t a ‘sticky situation,’ Potter,” Malfoy said through a clenched jaw, but there was less venom in his voice. Harry’s eyes caught on the way Malfoy’s plump lower lip was suddenly trapped beneath his teeth, felt his gaze moving lower, and promptly shot back up to meet Malfoy’s eyes again when he realized what he was doing. “I’ve been turned into a _girl_. There is quite literally nothing you can do to help.”

“I’ve always found that having someone to talk to helps.” Malfoy’s eyes rolled at this statement. “I’m actually quite a good listener, you know.”

Malfoy looked up at him through slitted eyes, like he was contemplating the legitimacy of everything Harry had just said. 

“Let me get this straight,” he began finally, “you want to …  _hang out_ with me?” The way he said it caused a very small smile to quirk the corners of Harry’s lips. “And ...  _talk_.” This last word was deadpanned, and Harry laughed. “Have you once again forgotten that I _have_ friends? Why in Salazar's name would I choose to talk to _you_ over them?” 

“I know you have friends, I'm not saying you don't. But it’s nice to get a different perspective sometimes. And like I said — I’m a good listener.”

Malfoy was quiet for several long moments, staring up at Harry from beneath long, golden lashes that brushed his feminine cheekbones every time he blinked.

Finally: “I’m _not_ hanging around Granger and Weasley."

Harry grinned. “Deal.”

“And I’m not hanging around you in _public_.”

Another grin, although this one was accompanied by an eye roll. “Deal,” Harry repeated.

Malfoy nodded stiltedly, arms tightening across his chest, looking suddenly uncomfortable again and utterly unsure of himself, something that, to Harry, was intriguing to witness on somebody who had always, as long as he'd known him, been the very height of arrogance.

"Fine." Harry watched him take a deep breath in which he could hear evidence of a subtle trace of shakiness. "Do you mind if we  _don't_ start tonight? I was really verymuch looking forward to some time alone, if it's all the same to you, Potter."

"Yeah, no, of course," Harry nodded, rubbing subconsciously at his scar as he looked around for the clothing he'd discarded. He felt Malfoy's eyes on him as he redressed and adamantly refused to dwell on the way this made his pulse increase and his stomach tighten with a sensation that was all too familiar and reminiscent of long afternoons spent naked and sweaty with Ginny.

When he was once again fully dressed, he turned back to Malfoy, who hadn't moved from his spot.

"Right, well, er — I s'pose I'll see you round, then?"

Malfoy gave him a curt nod, a silent way of saying,  _Yes, now **leave**_.

And Harry did, but even when he returned to Gryffindor Tower to find Ron and Ginny still awake and sitting around the fire — even when he joined them, reveling in the comfort and familiarity the company and the atmosphere afforded — he never  _wholly_ stopped thinking about his conversation with Malfoy.

 

* * *

 

Draco stayed where he'd been standing for several minutes after Potter left, some part of him certain that nosy, idiot Gryffindor would come stumbling back in with another proposition, another made-up excuse to stick around just so he could ogle Draco's misfortune.

And yet — and  _yet_ — he was left feeling even  _more_ confused by Potter's actions, not to mention his words, than he had been that day on the pitch, the first time Potter had actually seen Draco up close in this new, uncomfortable body. He hated to admit it,  _loathed_ it even, but Potter's words had sounded sickeningly sincere, and as much as Draco loved to believe that Potter was nothing more than the hyped-up hero his father had always insisted he was, that image of the Boy Who Lived had already begun cracking and falling to pieces since the day nearly five months ago now that Potter had saved his life.

This — whatever  _this_ was — only seemed to be further eroding Draco's foundation of beliefs concerning Boy Wonder.

Was it actually possible that all he wanted to do was help? It seemed absurd, but then, at least so far, Potter hadn't made fun of him once, nor had he seemed to gain any sort of pleasure out of Draco's predicament. He'd even looked mildly ashamed of himself for barging into the bathroom once he'd seemed to remember Draco had a lot more to hide these days than a nefarious plot. It was all so silly, because honestly, what  _help_ could he possibly provide? It was true that Draco had grown up in a family where talking about emotional things was forbidden, where showing emotion at all was considered a weakness, and the same went for all his Slytherin mates who'd similarly been brought up in the traditional ways of Pureblood families. 

But the truth, as embarrassing as it was, was that he _did_ want to talk. And as much as he'd insisted to Potter that he had friends, he knew — and, irritatingly, thought Potter suspected — that they weren't the type of friends he could talk to in the way Potter was offering. Sure, Pansy had made a point of glaring daggers at anyone who tried to make comments, and Blaise — while very clearly uncomfortable with this whole thing — had stiltedly told Draco he'd hex anyone that said anything in front of him, but neither of them had offered to talk the way Potter had. Certainly not Goyle, who was, if possible, even more freaked out by the situation than Blaise seemed to be.

It was all very confusing and emotionally draining, and that was on  _top_ of the severe dysphoria he was experiencing in his new body.

Now that Potter was gone, he removed his shirt again, and, after locking the door to the bathroom for good measure, took the bra off as well.

Ever since he'd been very young, Draco had known he preferred blokes. He'd never told his father this, of course, knowing perfectly well that his reaction would have ranged from complete meltdown to disownment, but privately, he'd become comfortable in this fact over the years. On vacations out of the country he'd slept with a couple of blokes behind his parents' backs, solidifying what he already knew and  _had_ known ever since Pansy's first advances when they were children.

For the first time since he'd become trapped in this body, he let himself look. He had  _tits_. He'd never even  _seen_ tits before, let alone the female bits he'd now acquired beneath his shorts. And while he was still hundreds of miles away from being comfortable enough to take a look at  _that_ , he supposed it was time he begin to face his own body one step at a time, knowing in his gut that as much as he didn't want to believe it, he could very well be stuck this way for a long,  _long_ time.

Tentatively, he tried cupping one of his breasts with a trembling hand, but as soon as he felt the softness of it, the  _supple_ quality of the skin, he immediately let go, and wiped angrily at a tear that had spilled over onto his cheek.

This was a living nightmare. Perhaps not in the same way having the Dark Lord living in his family's home had been, nor the same way watching his father be sent to Azkaban and his mother sentenced to house arrest had been, but it was a nightmare of its own special brand.

Leaving the bra off but putting his shirt back on, Draco slipped into the steaming tub fully clothed and let himself cry until his eyes were red, puffy, and sore, and he could sneak back into his dorm room in the dead of night without being accosted by any of the friends he'd insisted to Potter he'd have rather spoken to than him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	4. Chapter 4

His heart was a drum against his ribcage.

It seemed to Harry that he should have been able to see its shape beneath the skin of his chest, for it felt as though it had begun taking flying leaps in an attempt at escape.

He felt his pulse in his fingers, his temples, his throat.

The sounds of the world were muffled by the rush of blood in his ears.

Skirting around the edges of his consciousness, a panic attack was being just barely held at bay.

He knew why he’d come here. It was just that, now that he _was_ here, Harry wasn’t all that sure he’d be able to go through with it in the end. 

Before him, the Forbidden Forest loomed like a living entity. Harry’s frantic, racing thoughts were that of the last time he’d stood here, facing the tangible inevitability of death. Seventeen years old, he’d entered this forest with his hands shaking, his heart in his throat, and a Snitch clutched in his sweaty palm. Knowing that he was about to die. Knowing he wasn’t ready yet to give up his life, and that he was mere minutes from doing so anyway.

It was afternoon, and the early autumn sunlight that beamed down through the ceiling of leaves helped to keep Harry in the present, keep him from becoming fully engulfed in the nightmare once he’d stepped inside.

The nightmare wasn’t why he’d come. 

He’d come for Sirius, for Lupin.

He’d come for his parents.

For as vivid as the memories were, Harry had realized when he came out here that he didn’t in fact know exactly where he’d gone in. He couldn’t remember. He’d been so inside himself that the details of his surroundings had become nothing more than a blur.

He knew that the Resurrection Stone was forever lost in these massive woods, and he hadn’t come here to find it, nor had he come here because any part of him believed he would see the ghosts of Sirius, Lupin, and his parents ever again.

He’d come because it was where he had seen them _once_ , and he was hoping desperately that being back here would make him feel closer to them again.

For fifteen minutes he walked, feeling his anxiety heighten with each foot he put in front of the other as the canopy of leaves became denser, allowing in less light, and all too aware that the only thing he _wasn’t_ feeling was connected to _any_ of the loved ones he’d ever lost in his short life.

All he felt was lonely and strangely hollow.

Finding a clearing and having no inkling as to whether or not it was the one where Voldemort had cast the Killing Curse on him five months ago for the second time, he picked a small stump and sat down.

The past couple weeks, the anxiety that had been slowly but surely creeping up on him since the day the war had ended had seemed to retract its tentacles the smallest bit, and Harry knew very well that this was because he’d been distracted by Malfoy. However, after the arrangement they’d made, Harry had decided to let Malfoy be the one to come to him this time simply because, quite frankly, he was beginning to feel bad for having harassed him. He wasn’t sixteen anymore, he’d had to remind himself — the mature thing to do now was to back off, for he’d left the ball in Malfoy’s court and if Malfoy decided to renege on the deal, well … there wasn’t much Harry could do about it.

And he was starting to think that was the case, because it had been four days since they’d spoken. He’d caught Malfoy’s eye a few times in the Great Hall, in the corridors, and in classes, but Malfoy never approached him, not even in private. And without that to hold his focus, everything had started to close in on him again. 

Elbows on his knees and chin cupped in his hands, Harry watched a Bowtruckle he’d spotted in a tree with only a vague sense of interest, the hollowness in his chest making it difficult to take pleasure in anything at all.

He could have brought this up to Hermione, but he’d been resisting it for reasons he both didn’t understand and didn’t want to analyze. Not to mention the fact that it was so difficult to put into words. He could have talked to Ginny, too, but the thought of it didn’t feel right, either. 

“They’ll coddle me,” he mumbled to himself, imagining it even as he said it: he could see Hermione’s face like she was right in front of him, that look of worry, of deep concern; it was the same look she’d given him fifth year when she’d been walking on egg shells around him, or the day she’d told him about his wand when they’d been on the run.

He was sick of being treated like even a mention of the war would trigger him, like he needed to be handled as though he’d shatter into a million pieces any moment as soon as the topic was broached on a personal level.

And then it occurred to him: who was the one person in the _universe_ who had never once treated him with anything even resembling fragility?

His heart rate picked back up again, but this time it was because he’d sprung up from the stump and quickened his pace to a jog in order to get to the owlery.

 

* * *

 

Ginny had asked him if he wanted to spend some time together earlier in the evening, and as much as a part of him genuinely would have liked to do that, he’d declined with the excuse that he was exhausted from the Quidditch conditioning he’d done before dinner (which _was_ true), except that although he did go up to his dorm around ten, he donned his Cloak at twelve-thirty after everyone was asleep and went down to the Prefects’ bathroom.

Earlier, he’d used a school owl to send a note to Malfoy, and it hadn’t been without a pang of sadness when he didn’t see Hedwig among the others. 

He didn’t fill the tub, just sat at the edge and dangled his legs with his arms out behind him, wondering if Malfoy would come, if it had been utterly stupid to have even entertained the notion that it might work.

It was quarter past one — one being the time Harry had asked Malfoy to meet him — when the door opened and Harry turned to see him stepping inside.

“Malfoy,” he said, standing up and nodding at the blond, as pleased as he was shocked. “I was getting ready to give up and leave.”

Malfoy shrugged his no-longer broad shoulders but stayed standing where he was, dressed tonight in what looked to be the same shorts as before, but this time the t-shirt was a dark, forest green.

“I almost didn’t come,” he said. “I only decided to ten minutes ago. Figures you’d still be here.” 

Harry rolled his eyes, but the snark was such a relief that his shoulders relaxed from the way they’d been tensed up nearly to his ears all day.

“Well, I’m glad you did.” He sat back down at the edge of the tub. After a moment’s hesitation and a sceptical look from Malfoy, he finally joined Harry at the edge, swinging his legs over the side where they looked incredibly pale and incredibly _small_ next to Harry’s. “I could use some company.”

“From me?” Malfoy spluttered in a rare moment of ineloquence.

Harry didn’t smile, only picked at his nails in his lap as he tried to sort out his thoughts. 

“From someone who won’t treat me like the war made me …  _unstable_. Like I’ll break any second.” He looked over at Malfoy and saw an unreadable, stoic expression on his startlingly pretty face. He said nothing, and Harry took his silence as a cue to continue, and that he was now listening with less scepticism. “You wouldn’t think I’d be lonely,” he began, “and I’m not _always_. It’s just that … half the time, I can’t stand being around anyone anymore.” This was something he’d hardly even admitted inside his own head since he’d noticed it beginning to happen, and his cheeks flushed red with something that was both embarrassment, guilt, and nerves. “Like I said, it’s not _all_ the time, it’s just —”

“They don’t get it,” Malfoy cut him off abruptly. “For them, the war is over.”

The words hit home in such an unexpectedly profound way that all Harry could do was nod and look down at his lap again, hands gripping the edges of the tub so tightly his knuckles had lost their color.

“And here you were insisting _I’m_ the one who needs help.”

Harry was startled into a laugh, and he even heard a small, undeniably _cute_ chuckle come out of Malfoy beside him. 

“Ron and Hermione are my best friends,” he explained, and his hands came back into his lap where he began picking again, “they’ve been with me through thick and thin.” He paused, rolled the next words around on his tongue, and finally spit them out, “But there’s no thick anymore. And I’ve spent the last seven years — nearly half my _life_ — knowing what my purpose was. Knowing what I had to do. Focusing all my time and energy on that one thing, on _Voldemort_ , and now he’s gone, and I…  _God_ , that’s all I ever wanted was _for_ him to be gone, to have a normal life, to be able to do whatever _I_ wanted to do, but …” His sentence trailed off, shaking his head, and he looked up at Malfoy again. “Truth is, since the day I killed him, everything’s just felt so …  _meaningless_.”

They sat in silence for several minutes following this confession, and it was Malfoy who finally broke it.

“That’s really moving, Potter, but at least you didn’t grow a pair of tits.”

Harry burst into laughter and he felt his heart lighten so significantly it made his head spin. In spite of the sarcasm, or perhaps it was  _because_ of it, Harry felt more understood than he had in quite a long time. 

“He lived in my house,” Malfoy went on once Harry had stopped chuckling, and the words made any trace of humor left die on his tongue. “Pansy, Blaise, Vince and Greg … all of them. They didn’t even _meet_ him. But all summer, and every time I went home last year, there he was.” His eyes were fixed now on the bottom of the tub, and Harry felt goose bumps erupting on his arms as Malfoy spoke. “I couldn’t tell you how many people I saw him murder, _right_ in front of me. Laughing.” 

Harry nodded, his throat tight. “I used to hear him laughing in my head.”

Malfoy looked at him, and when their eyes met, Harry felt his gut wrench.

"The war isn't over for me either, Potter."

Malfoy was the one to finally break the eye contact, and that seemed to be the end of the conversation. He pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Harry saw him shiver.

“Are you cold?” He pulled off his jumper and handed it over automatically, and although his cheeks colored when he realized to whom he’d just offered it, he didn’t retract the offer. Malfoy seemed to contemplate the article of clothing for several moments before taking it and pulling it over his small frame. “Parkinson been lending you clothes?” 

Malfoy nodded. “I’ve ordered a few things, but I don’t have all that much money on me at school, and I can’t very well ask my mum to send me clothesand school robes that are half what my size used to be.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that,” Harry admitted. “That’s a right pain in the arse, it sounds like.”

“Things keep cropping up.” Malfoy sighed and pushed a bit of his fringe out of his eyes. “I asked the Healers and McGonagall not to tell my mum, and since I’m of age, they legally couldn’t, so she still doesn’t know. I suppose I’ll have to tell her eventually, though, if this doesn’t go away by the holidays.

“I guess the only thing that _isn’t_ a problem so far is that I preferred blokes anyway.”

Harry’s eyes widened and the color in his cheeks returned. He saw Malfoy smile at this reaction, but the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“Sort of makes it — er — difficult, though, you know, considering I know _nothing_ about …” He looked away from Harry, almost as though he couldn’t believe what he’d just said, and Harry felt dazed by not only the admission of something he and everyone else at Hogwarts had suspected for quite a long time — Malfoy’s sexuality — but the fact that he’d shared such a deeply personal insecurity with Harry.

“You’ll, erm — you’ll figure it out,” he said awkwardly, fingers raking through his mess of dark hair. Malfoy scowled, a deep blush making his pale skin turn the color of a tomato.

“It’s disgusting,” he said quietly, almost reluctantly, and Harry could hear the unspoken, _**I’m** disgusting_. “I don’t … I don’t _want_ to figure it out. I want it to go away.” 

Harry chewed on his bottom lip, wishing more than ever before he could do something to help, give him some _actual_ advice. But he supposed Malfoy wasn’t looking for an answer or any sort of advice anyway — he was venting, saying what he’d probably not said to anyone else yet, and that idea made Harry feel strangely fulfilled. 

“It’s not disgusting,” Harry said. “Women — er — have beautiful bodies. You’ll just have to get to know _yours_ , you know, at your own pace.”

Another, more awkward silence enveloped them, and Harry wondered how in Merlin’s name he’d gotten Malfoy to open up the way he had just now.

Once again, Malfoy was the one to break the silence.

“Didn’t we start this off talking about _you_?” he drawled. “Very Slytherin of you, Potter, manipulating the conversation around to me.” 

“I didn’t manipulate shit,” he laughed. “Just admit it, Malfoy, I’m pretty good to talk to.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Malfoy stood up from the tub and wrapped his arms around himself, the sleeves of Harry’s jumper hiding his hands entirely. Harry observed with a bit of astonishment that he looked rather cute wearing it, and then pushed away that thought.

“I suppose you’re not _quite_ as daft as I’d suspected,” Malfoy lilted, bringing a bright, smug grin to Harry’s face. “But don’t let it get to your head, Potter. If it gets any bigger it’ll explode into a million pieces.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Harry chuckled, standing up as well and eyeing Malfoy with a raised brow. “Does this mean I’ll be seeing you more often, then?” 

Malfoy eyed him, and there was something in that gaze this time that made Harry’s belly tighten with an undeniable arousal.

“You know where the entrance to Slytherin is?” he said finally. Harry nodded slowly, confused. “Meet me there tomorrow night at one o’clock again. And bring your Cloak.” 

“Why …?” 

“It’s still nice out,” Malfoy explained airily, “we can sit by the lake instead of in here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	5. Chapter 5

Malfoy never showed up the next night.

Harry waited beneath his Cloak outside the Slytherin common room until half past one in the morning, at which point he grudgingly admitted to himself that he was wasting his time. What made it most disappointing was how utterly sure he’d been that Malfoy really had meant it when he’d said they could talk tonight, but Harry supposed it had been foolish to put any stock in anything Malfoy had to say. An unsteady truce didn’t negate seven years of hatred, after all.

Frustration and a sense of anticlimactic unfulfillment made his sleep choppy, and by the time the pale light of dawn began to stretch its fingers over the horizon around six, Harry gratefully climbed out of bed. Ruminating behind his four-poster’s curtains had only ever served to drive him crazy.

In the common room, not even Hermione was awake yet. She’d still been up the night before when he’d left to meet Malfoy, buried behind so many stacks of books it looked as though she was attempting to build a city out of them. He’d learned a long time ago that nothing good ever came from lying to Hermione, and yet he’d done it again last night. It wasn’t that he thought she would be mad — on the contrary, she might have even approved of his earnest desire to help. The problem was that she would undeniably want to talk about it, the pros and the cons, the risks and the rewards, and Harry didn’t want any of that.

The truth was, as silly as it sounded even in his head, he wanted to keep the whole thing between himself and Malfoy, at least for now. Beyond that, bringing Hermione into it was _sure_ to alienate Malfoy for good. 

Although, that didn’t seem to matter anymore, did it? He’d chosen not to show up last night, and that marked the end of their shaky companionship before it had really even begun. It seemed their talk hadn’t resonated with Malfoy the way it had with him. Disappointing, immensely irritating, but perhaps not all that surprising.

Resigning himself to the end of this Malfoy debacle once and for all, Harry spent the next hour half-heartedly polishing and pruning his broomstick until Hermione came down and the two of them went to breakfast. 

“What were you doing up so early?” she questioned him on the way down to the Great Hall. “Don’t tell me you’ve been studying behind my back.”

“Yeah, you wish,” Harry laughed, and this brought a lovely, carefree smile onto her face that Harry never tired of seeing these days. Sometimes he even dared to believe those seeimgly permanent dark circles under her eyes were beginning to fade away. “I had trouble sleeping last night. Didn’t feel like being in bed anymore, I guess.” 

“Yes, that happens to me from time to time, as well,” she nodded. “It’s expected, after a war like that. It helps if you talk a little bit, Harry.” Feeling suddenly uncomfortable with the topic of the war broached (not to mention the clear resonance to what Harry had been saying to Malfoy last night), Harry descended into a silence that wasn’t lost on Hermione. She sighed and slackened her pace, forcing Harry to follow suit, until they were stopped in the middle of an empty fourth-floor corridor. “I know it’s painful, and I know you don’t want to talk to Ron and me about it, and I understand." Harry looked up, startled by this pronouncement at first until he realized it wasn't actually so surprising that Hermione should have figured this out. "But keeping everything trapped inside your head is even more painful in the long run.” One small hand rested on Harry’s arm and he gave her a weak, grateful smile. “Think about it, okay? Carrying all that around with you … it isn’t your burden to bear, Harry.”

As they continued down to the Great Hall, Harry was reminded of something Malfoy had said the other night: _for them, the war is over_.

 

* * *

 

For the first time since the day Pansy had lent him a bra and shown him how to use it, Draco managed to put the damned thing on without fumbling once. A shadow of a satisfied smile came onto his face before he realized what he was smiling about. That was quick to remove it.

He’d been given a private room for the time being. Leaving him in the boys’ dorm was unthinkable and switching him to the girls’ seemed not to have sat well with McGonagall either. Draco, of course, hadn’t complained. He’d have given anything for a private room the last seven years he’d gone to school here — all it had taken was being changed into a bloody woman to get it.

The problem with the private room was that Pansy still knew where it was.

She’d been a saving grace during this whole thing, that much was undeniable. She might not have been all that helpful to talk to, but she _had_ provided him with clothing, and she’d played the part of the protective best friend flawlessly. A little _too_ flawlessly, perhaps. As much as he appreciated the safety net, it was awfully easy to feel smothered by her attention.

As usual, there was a knock on his door at seven-thirty. A flick of his wand unlocked it, and Pansy came sauntering in with a box in her hands which she set down on Draco’s bed.

“Your clothes came,” she explained, taking a seat beside the parcel and crossing one leg over the other primly. She eyed his exposed torso, breasts hidden beneath a silky brassiere, expression unreadable. “There’s a dress in there I’ll need to take home during the holidays. Mother says she wants to see me in it. I think she was glad for an excuse to do some shopping — she didn’t ask any questions even though I practically requested a new wardrobe.”

“I appreciate it,” Draco said stiltedly. A knot had formed in his stomach. “I don’t think I’ll be wearing any dresses anyhow. That’s a level beyond what I’m comfortable with at the moment.”

“But Draco,” Pansy lilted, and he knew from the tone of her voice he’d hate whatever came out of her mouth next. Indeed: “Your legs would look so _lovely_ in a dress.”

In no mood to start an argument, he merely sent her a scowl.

What he found inside the box was hardly surprising, and yet it still made him feel queasy to look at its contents: Dresses. Blouses. Nothing _too_ loud, of course — high society didn’t tolerate vulgar ostentation. Still, it was bad enough. It wasn’t as though Pansy could have asked her mother for more gender-neutral clothing without attracting suspicion, after all, and Draco planned to keep this from his mother as long as possible. And if Acacia Parkinson suspected something, Narcissa Malfoy would be quick to hear about it. His one saving grace was that at least the clothes would be worn beneath his robes most of the time, anyway.

The least intimidating things inside the package were a terribly feminine pair of slacks and simple blouse, and after ushering Pansy out of the room, Draco dressed himself and covered it up with his school robes gratefully.

Pansy managed a stream of endless prattling as they made their way to breakfast, but Draco’s focus was elsewhere as soon as they stepped into the Great Hall: Potter.

Draco had stood him up last night, and he wasn’t entirely certain how the hot-headed Gryffindor was going to deal with that. Shouting, perhaps? A hex across the Great Hall? But no … even when Potter looked up and spotted him, the most he did was stare for a moment before returning to his food. This irked Draco in an unexpected way. It had been satisfying last night, knowing he was standing up the Golden Boy. To see this lack of a reaction, well … it negated that satisfaction quite a bit.

Of course, that hadn’t been why Draco had done it. He’d chickened out at the last second. He hadn’t stopped ruminating over the things he’d said — the things he’d _admitted_ — while they had been talking in that bathroom. It was astounding to realize that Potter had changed quite a lot since sixth year, the last time Draco had truly paid any significant amount of attention to him. He supposed that wasn’t necessarily a strange thing, considering the events of the last two years, yet it was still a little bit off-putting to know that Potter had so easily gotten Draco to open up. Where had the bullheaded boy of their early teens gone?

 _Died_ , Draco’s mind supplied morbidly. _Died like everyone else who was wiped off the planet in that goddamned bloody war._

After all … even Harry Potter couldn’t have survived a second Killing Curse without losing _something_ , could he?

“Draco, darling,” Pansy’s voice sliced through his musings, “you haven’t touched your croissant and your face looks as empty as a troll’s. What is it?” 

“Nothing.” Draco ripped his gaze away from the plate he’d been staring at and pushed it habitually toward Goyle, who took it in a state of similar habit and added its contents to his own meal. “I’m still feeling nauseous, that’s all. Hormones, I expect.”

Pansy nodded understandingly. “You poor thing. Have some tea, at least. You’ll be starving halfway through Transfiguration.”

He acquiesced, but even as he forced himself to join in on a conversation with Pansy and Blaise, Draco’s mind never strayed far from Potter. By the end of breakfast, he’d decided he needed to talk to him, and sooner rather than later. Not to apologize —  _never —_ but to at least give some sort of excuse for why he hadn't shown up.

As soon as he noticed Potter stand up, Draco did as well. Across the room, Draco saw him look his way again, and Draco caught his eye for a moment before Potter was out the door.

“I need to run back to my room before class. I’ll see you there,” he told Pansy, and left without giving her time to question him. Unfortunately, by the time he reached the entrance hall, Potter was nowhere to be seen, and Draco let out a frustrated breath. How was it that for a week it was all Draco could do to shake the stubborn barnacle, and now he’d suddenly turned into a damned ghost?

With that opportunity squandered, Draco didn’t have a chance to see Potter again until their double Potions class later in the afternoon. He was able to slip him a note with _“Astronomy Tower @ 12”_ written on it in careful script. And because he couldn’t tell by the look on Potter’s face alone whether or not he was open to the idea, Draco was forced to rely on blind hope. This was excruciating, because it was entirely possible he wouldn’t come.

He did come, though. And it was no more than two minutes past the hour.

Hands pressed into the pockets of his denims, Potter joined him near the railing. He looked as contemplative as Draco felt. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure why he’d chosen this spot — it held terrible memories. And yet the wide-open view of the heavens retained its charm.

Potter looked ...  _good_. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, arms corded with muscle that had never been there before, he was really quite intimidating to behold, and Draco felt a lump of reluctance rise in his throat.

“I don’t like being jerked around, Malfoy,” Potter said finally. It didn’t sound like the petty threat of a teenager, but rather a solemn warning from someone who’d quite suddenly grown up. It did nothing to help ease Draco's sudden ambivalence. “It’s fine if you don’t wanna talk. But don’t tell me to be somewhere at one in the morning and then not show up.” 

Coming from Potter, Draco’s instinctive urge was to snap in response, and he had to fight it back.

“I assure you, Potter, I never made those plans with the intention of skiving off on you.” Leaning back against the railing and pulling his cloak tighter across his chest, Draco locked eyes with Potter defiantly. Potter, for his part, appeared completely inscrutable. “I changed my mind at the last second. You are the last person on e _arth_ with whom I’m going to discuss something so personal. Or discuss _anything_ for that matter. We aren’t friends.” 

Potter raised an eyebrow. “Then why did you ask me to meet you here?”

After a moment of startled silence in which Draco himself realized he wasn’t entirely sure of that, he answered quietly, “To tell you that.”

“You could have just written ‘sorry, never mind’ on that piece of paper, saved us both the trip.”

“This isn’t an apology,” Draco said forcefully, eyebrows coming together. There was no immediate reason to be feeling irritated, Potter hadn’t really done anything wrong, but the habit was so ingrained it was hard to fight. That, and this new stoic thing he was doing was really beginning to get under Draco’s skin. “It’s an explanation. I’m not sorry, Potter. And besides, if I want the message to get through that thick head into your pea-sized brain, I know that I need to say it in person. Otherwise you’ll show up under that damnable Cloak again every time I try to have a midnight soak.”

At one point in their lives, this would have been enough to set Potter off into a full-on rage. Swinging fists would have been an easy guarantee. But like in the Quidditch stands, Potter seemed strangely immune to taunts these days. His face stayed mostly expressionless except for a knitted brow.

“Is that really all you had to say to me?” Potter said eventually. “Or is this you changing your mind at the last minute again?” 

Floored by this positively cheeky response, Draco had to consciously close his mouth before Potter noticed he was gaping. It was dangerous to lose his temper; dangerous because his hormones were out of whack and he was liable to say anything; dangerous because this was not Predictable Potter anymore, so easy to goad into a fight.

He lost his temper anyway.

“ _This_ , Potter,” Draco bit out, “is me trying to hammer it into your woefully dense Gryffindor brain that just because you saved me from burning to death alongside Vince in that Fiendfyre _doesn’t_ mean I owe you a friendship. Just because Saint Potter has gotten used to the _rest_ of the world kissing his arse and his two massive left feet _doesn’t_ mean that I’m going to get down on my knees and do the same!” His chest was heaving, and although he hated it, Draco wasn’t surprised to feel the wetness of tears stinging his eyes. _Damn_ this body, and damn the hormones that came with it. And most of all, damn Potter and that stupid, _pitying_ expression on his face. “You couldn’t even let me rot in Azkaban, could you? At least then I’d be with Father instead of stuffing myself into Pansy’s old dresses! I _hate_ you, Potter. And you hate _me_ , remember? That doesn’t change just because I suddenly have a pair of tits I didn’t ask for.”

Potter’s face was still unreadable, but the stoicism was gone, at least. He looked deeply disturbed, his face colored with an emotion Draco couldn’t define. Finally, with his hands still deep inside his pockets, Potter seemed to find his voice, and he spoke without moving his famous green eyes from Draco’s face.

“I don’t hate you, Malfoy.” Feeling suddenly sick to his stomach, Draco dropped his eyes to the stone floor of the tower. He could still feel Potter’s burning gaze on him. “I saved you because you didn’t deserve to die. I kept you out of Azkaban because you didn’t deserve that either, and I kept your mother out because she helped me when I was in that forest.” Heart in his throat, Draco looked up again in astonishment. He hadn’t heard that story. “I know how much your father means to you. But Lucius … Azkaban is exactly what he deserves.”

His hands were smaller than they used to be, but that didn’t stop Draco from pulling one back and thrusting it forward straight into Potter’s jaw, satisfied with the way Potter stumbled backwards despite the way his knuckles were now screaming in pain. One hand on his jaw, Potter looked back at Draco once he’d steadied himself without much shock on his face, as though some part of him had been fully expecting that sort of reaction.

“Just get the hell out of here, Potter.”

Potter looked for a moment like he was about to say something else. Apparently he decided against it in the end, however, because without another word, and with a last long, searching glance at Draco’s face, he did leave.

The adrenaline of the punch wore off quickly, and when it was gone, it left nothing behind but a deep, empty-chested sadness that followed Draco all the way back to his dorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	6. Chapter 6

Pretending he’d resigned himself to the way things had turned out with Malfoy wound up being not quite as easy as Harry would have liked. His head felt tangled up in sixteen different types of knots, and his emotions were even farther out of whack. 

He _was_ ticked off. When Malfoy was the subject, anger was always bubbling just below the surface. This was inevitable, utterly habitual, and with good reason: Malfoy had a tendency to say the one thing that really burrowed beneath Harry’s skin and festered there. And this time, not for the first time, he’d come away from the encounter with a throbbing jaw.

Yet he was disappointed, too. The truth of the matter which Harry had come to realize was that he’d really enjoyed talking to Malfoy. This was an absurd notion, something that would have been laughable even just a week ago, but it remained a fact Harry couldn’t hide from himself. And while initially he’d done it purely (or what had _seemed_ purely) out of a desire to help, he’d been unable to escape the glaringly obvious truth of the situation, which was that he’d been counting on another chat. Everything Malfoy had said to him that night in the bathroom had resonated. Most astoundingly, it had given Harry something to think about that he wouldn’t otherwise have gleaned for himself. Even Hermione didn’t quite know how to talk to Harry, and she seemed to have figured out for herself that she couldn’t help him.

 _For them, the war is over._ It was a phrase he absolutely could not unstick from the inside of his head. Was he floundering? It seemed almost as though the war itself had been a spectacular tsunami, washing over everything Harry had ever known — but on the other side, in the aftermath, he looked around and saw that everyone else had dried off and begun rebuilding their lives. Everyone except Harry, whose clothes were still dripping wet.

It appeared Malfoy was still soaked to the bone, as well. 

The whole thing was moot, though. Despite what had seemed to be an initial, hesitant interest on Malfoy’s part, it had turned right back around into the hatred and mistrust which had always existed between them. Perhaps for Malfoy, that would never change. It bothered Harry, the amount of irritation and disappointed this stirred up within him, but because there was very little he could do about it short of chaining Malfoy’s brand-new body to a chair and forcing his audience, Harry was forced to catch himself every time he began ruminating and redirect his train of thought.

This wasn’t easy when his eyes always seemed, somehow, to pick Malfoy out in the corridors, in the Great Hall during meals, even in classes they shared. As though Harry’s subconscious had become attuned to him, he often found himself looking up when Malfoy walked into a room, and each time it annoyed him more. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been unexpected — the two of them had shared such a fiery mutual hatred for so many years that seeking out Malfoy’s presence had become an instinct. 

Like the war, Harry supposed this was something he needed to move on from. And he would, in time. Just as he knew that, in time, _surely_ the frequency with which he caught himself staring at the curves and dips of Malfoy’s body would lessen. 

In the meantime, Madam Hooch had overzealously agreed to reinstate Harry as captain of the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He wasn’t, however, fond of the idea that his recent defeat of Voldemort might have had something to do with her over-the-top enthusiasm, and he’d had to remind himself he’d gotten this position even without having slain an evil dictator a couple years ago.

It felt remarkably good to have something physical to put his energy toward, and for the week following his encounter with Malfoy on the Astronomy Tower, the pitch was where he spent most of his free time.

Tryouts for the rest of the team would be taking place on the first Saturday of October. It astounded Harry that he’d already been back at school more than a month. In spite of the obvious, everything else about Hogwarts had been settling back into place as neatly as the pieces of one of Dudley’s old Muggle jigsaw puzzles that had been stacked up, unused, in the second bedroom when Harry had taken it. 

On the Saturday of the tryouts, Harry was at the pitch early, even before breakfast, just as the sun was rising, washing the field in a golden aura. He was still having trouble sleeping, but it felt so peaceful being the only person awake and on the pitch that he really didn’t mind anymore. 

By the time he walked into the Great Hall to find Ron wolfing down kippers and eggs and Hermione reading the morning’s _Prophet_ , perspiration was drying on Harry’s skin and his heart was still coming down from his latest dive to catch a Snitch. Truthfully, he’d been afraid that holding a Snitch again might trigger some sort of panic attack, and he’d been eternally grateful to find it wasn’t so. 

“Harry, there you are,” Hermione greeted him, pouring out a large glass of pumpkin juice as he sat down across the table. He took it gratefully and swallowed half of it down in a few large gulps, then began piling food onto his plate. “You didn’t see the notice that was posted in the common room when you left this morning, I expect? 

He shook his head, mouth stuffed with sausage. 

“They’re doing a Halloween Ball instead of a feast this year,” Ron cut in, and he pointed his fork across the table at Harry, eggs dangling from the end of it. Hermione looked revolted. “Honouring your mum and dad.” 

Harry stopped chewing abruptly, and by the exasperated look on Hermione’s face, he guessed she’d been prepared to reveal this information in a more tactful way. Harry, however, preferred Ron’s bluntness. He detested been tip-toed around.

“My mum and dad?” he repeated, setting his fork down and turning his attention to Hermione. “But ... but _why_?”

“It isn’t _just_ your parents,” Hermione clarified. “It said that the ball would be a tribute to everyone who had sacrificed their lives in the war against Voldemort. It’s just that ... well, your mum and dad were singled out in particular. I mean, Harry, Halloween is ...” Her sentence trailed off, probably seeing the look in Harry’s eyes that told her he was perfectly aware of the significance of Halloween. “Harry, you’re ... you’re very special to the Wizarding world right now. I know you could do without the attention, but it’s understandable that people are looking up to you after everything you’ve done for them. And if it weren’t for Lily and James ...”

“Yeah,” Harry cut her off, releasing a deep sigh. “As long as they don’t expect me to give a speech or anything, then I s'pose it’s not a big deal.”

“McGonagall would have spoken to you already if that were the case, I imagine,” she reassured him.

“Would have been nice if she’d spoken to me before planning a bloody party in honour of my dead parents.” Regretting his clipped tone immediately, he shot Hermione an apologetic look. “Sorry, I just ... I’m ready for all of this to be over.”

“Don’t worry, mate.” Across the table, Ron dropped an arm across Hermione’s shoulders and took a swig of juice to wash down all his food. “It won’t be like this forever.”

 

* * *

 

The sentiment of Ron’s words was all well and good, but it didn’t mean that the attention wasn’t irksome while it was happening. 

The ball was all anybody could talk about, and to Harry’s extreme frustration, the fresh buzz only added to the amount of people who showed up for tryouts that afternoon. There were quite literally dozens of them, and at least a third weren’t even Gryffindors. Mostly it was girls, giggling and whispering and ogling Harry without shame. It took so long to get through it that the tryouts for the other teams had been postponed until the following weekend, and when the last person had left the field, it was already nearing five o’clock. It was so silly, too, because most of the team was the same as it had been last time Harry captained them. 

Ron was back as Keeper and Ginny as a Chaser. Peakes and Coote were once again his Beaters. Demelza hadn’t come back, but Dean did and he beat out his competition beautifully, so Harry had wound up needing only one new Chaser. This came in the form of Izabella Scrivner, a fifth-year with a penchant for dodging Bludgers and scoring long-range goals. He especially appreciated what seemed to be an utter lack of interest in whom Harry was, but rather in proving her talent. She was nearly as good as Ginny, and Harry suspected she might one day make a career out of it.

Later that same night, after Hermione had packed up the essays she’d been working on and gone up to bed, Ginny came over and settled herself down beside Harry in one of the chairs near the fire. Ron was playing chess with Seamus, and Harry’s attention had begun to slip. 

“It feels like we haven’t had much time to ourselves since we’ve been back, doesn’t it?” she said quietly. Her soft lips found the corner of his jaw, and Harry noted peripherally the lack of any stirrings this elicited the way it might have a year or two ago. “I hope you don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. About us.”

“Course not,” Harry snaked an arm around her waist out of habit, but his heart wasn’t in the gesture. “Everyone’s just trying to get back into the swing of things. Us included.” It hadn’t escaped his notice that this didn’t seem to have stopped Ron and Hermione from exploring their new relationship, but he didn’t bring it up. “In fact, I ... I appreciate the space you’ve given me, Ginny. Still feels like I’m trying to find my ground sometimes. Steady myself, y'know?”

Ginny nodded, her head coming down to rest on his shoulder. One of her hands touched his chest and then curled in the material of his jumper. Her hair smelled different than it used to, but that felt somehow appropriate. Ginny wasn’t the fifteen-year-old he’d dated two years ago. Different though it might have been, it still reminded him of safety, and of home. 

Picking her head up again suddenly, she lifted her eyes to his face, and he saw her searching for something.

“Do you think you might be up for sharing your bed tonight?” she asked him bluntly. A smile crept onto his face. Leave it to Ginny to say exactly what she wanted. That quality of hers never stopped being relieving — he hated trying to guess what people wanted from him.  

He nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Though neither had said it, and even though Harry suspected it wasn’t the main reason Ginny had asked, he knew that neither of them had gone up those stairs thinking they _weren’t_ going to have sex.

It had been more than a year. Sex hadn’t even been on his mind during most of that time, but as soon as they’d started kissing behind _Muffliato-_ d curtains, Harry had realized how starved he’d been, and had taken her apart with a ferocious intensity. But when he’d rolled off of her, sleepy and sated in a way he hadn’t been in years, he’d realized something else: he wasn’t in love with Ginny anymore.  

For her part, Ginny seemed to sense something was off. She curled into him tentatively afterwards with a leg twisted in between his own, and although he felt none of the old passion, none of that raw emotion, he didn’t refuse her the intimacy. She propped herself up with an elbow on his chest in order to meet his eyes, despondence having replaced the radiant glow from Quidditch tryouts earlier.

“Something was different,” she said softly.

“I’m sorry, Ginny.” His chest clenched with guilt and sorrow. He lifted a hand to tuck a piece of blazing red hair behind her ear. “I thought it might still be the same, but …” He couldn’t bring himself to finish his thought. Couldn’t bear to say it out loud: _It isn’t there anymore_.

It was devastating to see a tear roll down her cheek. It hurt even more to see how hard she was trying to hold them back. He brushed it away with the pad of his thumb. 

“Don’t be,” she said after a moment. “I suppose there are some things that can’t go back to being the same as they were before.”

Harry could only nod. 

“Can I still stay tonight?” The request broke Harry’s heart. He pulled her into his side when she cuddled back into him, hating the way he could feel the wetness of her face pressed to his skin. 

“Of course you can, Gin.”

They fell asleep that way, and in the early hours of the morning, Ginny snuck out of his bed and went back to her dorm for the last time.

 

* * *

 

Defence Against the Dark Arts would have been by far the best class this year had it not been for the new professor’s penchant for using Harry as an aid in all his demonstrations. Even worse, he sometimes deferred to Harry’s judgment, at which point Harry would politely and somewhat awkwardly remind him that he was hardly an expert.

Thankfully, the Thursday of the week before Halloween Professor Boothby had the class divided up into groups practicing nonverbal magic. The spell had been chosen in the spirit of the holiday, _Rictusempra_. The tickling charm. It did not escape Harry’s notice that this was the spell he’d used on Malfoy during Duelling Club in their second year, nor did his mind fail to play the word association game and drag up memories of Malfoy lying on a bathroom floor, sliced to ribbons. This was especially bothersome considering they shared the class with the Slytherins, and Malfoy himself was not ten feet away.

The classroom’s atmosphere was pleasantly relaxed, though, and Harry couldn’t be too upset when at least he wasn’t being dragged up front to be used as an example.

Having gotten quite good at nonverbal magic, Harry was busy helping Neville when someone’s mis-casted spell created a flash of brilliant green light from the end of their wand, and Harry’s heart instantly froze in his chest. His scar didn’t _sting_ , but it tingled. This alone would have been enough to make Harry’s throat close up. The whole classroom went quiet, but Harry couldn’t tell if that had actually happened or if it was just because his ears had started ringing. Everyone was looking at him, he realized after a moment. Like someone turning up the volume, he noticed suddenly that Professor Boothby was talking to him.

“— all right, Mr. Potter? Do you need someone to take you to the hospital wing?”

“What?” Harry said stupidly, shaking his head like he was trying to clear it. His heart was no longer frozen but racing now, racing like it had been _that night_. “No. No, I’m sorry, I … I need to leave. I’m sorry, Professor.” Forgetting his bag entirely, he barely noticed Hermione and Ron trying to get his attention, nor the stares following his back as he left the classroom as quickly as he could.

He made it down the corridor and around a corner before he realized he had absolutely no idea where he was, nor could he seem to catch his breath. Peripherally he felt someone take his arm and steer him inside a nearby classroom, but at first, Harry couldn’t make heads or tails of who it was.

Blonde hair, that was what he noticed first. A girl in Slytherin robes, with pointy features and grey eyes.

“Malfoy,” he breathed, even as Malfoy’s hands were guiding him to a wall and pulling him down to a sitting position. Sitting felt better, his brain registered. “Malfoy, what are you —?”

“Stop talking, Potter,” Malfoy cut him off, and with his wand transfigured an abandoned old quill into a cup that he spelled full of water. Harry took it and forced down a sip. The cold was refreshing and helped to return him to the present. “Finnigan always was a bloody pillock.”

“Not like he meant to do it.” Harry set the water down beside him and dropped his head forward into his hands, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. It was beyond frustrating that things like this were still happening — from scar-induced hallucinations to panic attacks, the fun never ended for one Harry James Potter. After a minute, when his head had stopped swimming, he looked up and eyed Malfoy where he was sitting close by. “Why are you here, Malfoy?”

Malfoy shrugged. He looked exhausted. 

“It freaked me out too,” he said after a beat. “Don’t suppose that’s going to garner _me_ any sympathy, though.”

“Does from me.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. Under Harry’s unwavering sincerity, his fair cheeks bloomed with color.

“I don’t want your pity, Potter.” 

“It isn’t pity,” Harry said. He saw Malfoy’s throat work, but he wouldn’t look at Harry. “Maybe it’s forgiveness.” 

At these words, Malfoy’s eyes snapped to his face. He looked as furious as he did desperate.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he said sharply. 

“Why not?” Harry pushed. His eyes never left Malfoy’s face. “Why won’t you let this thing between us go, Malfoy?”

“There isn’t a _thing_ between us, Potter.” Suddenly Malfoy was standing up — as though _he_ hadn’t been the one to follow Harry in the first place — and Harry was following suit. “There’s a mutual loathing that’s existed since the first time we laid eyes on each other, whether you've decided to pretend otherwise or not. I came here because you looked like you were about to keel over and Merlin knows Granger and Weasley could only stoke the flames of a panic attack. Now you’re fine, and I’m leaving.”

Harry blocked his path to the door. A fire sparked to life in Malfoy’s eyes. It ignited something inside of Harry, as well.

“I already told you I don’t hate you, Malfoy.” Harry’s voice had taken on a sharp edge, something that served as a warning against any further attempts at making up bullshit excuses. “And if you hated _me_ you wouldn’t have done what you just did. So, what is it? Why won’t you let our past go? Why won’t you let me forgive y —”

“Because I don’t bloody deserve it, Potter!”

Malfoy’s voice cut through the air like a hot knife, leaving a silence in its wake that was tangible, the admission ringing in the air like an echo. Within two seconds he was moving towards the door, but even as he brushed past Harry’s shoulder, Harry caught his arm and drew him back. Instead of letting himself start thinking about it and letting the moment pass him by, he let his instinct win out: he pulled Malfoy in and kissed him hard on the mouth. There were several seconds of no movement at all, and then there was a flurry of it. Both of their mouths opened on one another like divers coming up for air; there was no careful preamble, just tongues and teeth and the blissfully sweet taste of Malfoy's mouth, bruised lips and gasps for air as Malfoy’s hands first curled into Harry’s robes and then shoved him back hard. Lips throbbing, Harry looked at Malfoy with his heart going a hundred miles a minute, utterly unable to grasp what had just happened. Malfoy looked to be equally stricken.

They stood there looking at each other for a minute, each replaying in his head those five seconds which had seemed to shatter the entire foundation of the world they’d always lived in.

It was Malfoy who moved first, and this time, Harry didn’t stop him from leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	7. Chapter 7

The dull, throbbing pain in his bottom lip made it so that Draco couldn’t pretend it hadn’t happened.

He desperately wanted to, though. Despite the way it had felt in the moment — or perhaps _because_ of that — he was utterly and completely distraught over that kiss. If it could even be _called_ a kiss. For it had been a struggle, too. A fight. He’d seen the look on Potter’s face afterwards, like even he hadn’t been expecting it, and Draco was inclined to believe that might just be the case. None of that negated one very simple, terrifying fact, however: the instant Potter had pulled him close and smashed their mouths together — in a display that was so classic, bullheaded Potter it seemed almost to approach the limits of being cliché — Draco had responded. It had been as instinctive as throwing a punch, except instead of a bruised jaw, Potter would now have a bruised mouth to match Draco’s.

His stomach lurched. The scene wouldn’t stop replaying in his head, and yet he couldn’t seem to fully wrap his brain around the reality of it. Potter had kissed him. He had kissed Potter back. _Potter_. Boy bloody Wonder. Underneath the anger and the violence, it still _had_ been a kiss, after all.

What would have happened, he wondered vaguely, if he hadn’t left? Or worse — if he hadn’t shoved Potter away? Might it have gone on even longer?

Wrapped up in his duvet with the curtains of his four-poster pulled shut around him, Draco shuddered. It wasn’t revulsion, as he would have hoped, but cold, confused dread. For the first time since Conway’s hex had forced Draco into an uncomfortable new body, he wasn’t thinking about how hyperaware he was of the weight on his chest, or the strangeness of his center of gravity having shifted to his hips; he was instead frantically searching for a reason behind this apparent madness. For that was what it felt like, knowing Harry Potter had kissed him: utter chaos. As though they’d slipped unwittingly into some distant dimension.

So far, he’d come up with only one theory: because Potter was apparently a Gryffindor right down to his toes, he’d taken a stance of nonviolence against Draco simply because he now _looked_ like a girl. In light of that, there must have been some sort of build-up of tension. Draco imagined it as a sink filling with water each time Potter forced himself to refrain from tossing a punch in Draco’s direction. Once the sink had filled up, where was there for the suppressed anger and emotion to go?

Into a terribly aggressive kiss, apparently.

Draco turned over and pulled the covers further up his body, burrowing his face into them and heaving a deep, world-weary sigh. As if things hadn’t been complicated enough before. Leave it to Potter to take an impossible situation and turn it completely on its head.

And that wasn’t even the worst of it. No, the part that left Draco feeling chilled right down to his bones was what he’d said just before Potter had done it. The reason he’d been trying to leave in the first place.

 _I don’t deserve it_.

“It” being Potter’s forgiveness, of course.

What had possessed him to say it? No matter how long he spent thinking it over, Draco couldn’t come up with an answer. Some part of him thought he didn’t _want_ an answer anyway. In fact, some part of him felt moments away from puking his guts out every time he played Potter’s voice back in his head: “ _Maybe it’s forgiveness._ ”

A knock on his door pulled him out of his own head, and a temporal charm told him he’d been hiding out in his dorm for several hours now. He pushed aside his curtains and manually went to let Pansy in.

“You missed dinner,” she said, walking past him into the room and holding out a heavy parchment envelope that was sealed with the Malfoy crest. Draco hated looking at it; the Ministry had seized most of his family’s assets shortly after the war, leaving them with a manor that was nothing more than an enormous, empty corpse. A skeleton of what it had once been. The insignia seemed to mock their predicament. He could imagine his mother sitting in the bare bones of his father’s once-grand office, writing to him with a Ministry official standing nearby. It made him sick to his stomach.

That image, however, was nothing to the contents of the letter:

 _My darling_ , it began, _even as I write to you this dreadful letter, it seems impossible to believe it true…_

* * *

It was all over the headlines the next morning:

 

**MALFOY TO RECEIVE KISS**

 

Was this supposed to be some sort of cosmic joke? Perhaps the universe was spiting him, Draco supposed, for what he’d said to Potter on the Astronomy Tower.

As morbidly satisfying as this was to believe, however, Draco knew it wasn’t true. At the infamous trial where Potter had spoken on his and his mother’s behalf and left his father to an Azkaban sentence, everyone had known that wasn’t the end of it. The Ministry was still pulling itself together after having spent the previous year run by the Dark Lord's minions — Azkaban had merely been a first step. Put the Death Eaters away, that had been everyone’s main concern. Get them off the streets and into a cell. Now that it had been done, and the Ministry was beginning to find its footing again, those in Azkaban would receive their final sentencings.

Apparently, the rest of the world agreed with Potter: Lucius Malfoy deserved no mercy.

Draco looked up. At the Gryffindor table, Granger was holding a copy of the _Prophet_ up for Potter, whose eyes found Draco’s only moments after he’d presumably read the headline. He could feel that gaze on his skin, and it boiled the blood beneath it. Around him, everyone was beginning to stare. Yet all he could see was Potter. 

Without preamble, Draco stood up from the Slytherin table, overcome with a single-minded intent to send the nastiest hex he could think of in Potter’s direction. Potter must have seen the look in his eyes, because he stood from the Gryffindor table as Draco started toward him. Before he could get halfway, however, a commotion had started, a few professors coming down from the head table as though anything that had to do with Potter and Malfoy was automatically deemed an immediate threat to the students’ safety. Draco stared at him another moment, jaw clenching, wanting nothing more than to go over there and beat Potter’s face to a bloody pulp, before turning and leaving the Great Hall. 

Last night, after sending Pansy away, Draco had sobbed into his pillows until his eyes were raw. Yet it seemed he hadn’t run out of tears; as he burst through the oak front doors and into the chilly autumn morning, Draco felt hot rivulets streaming down his cheeks. With only his school robes to keep him warm in this unfamiliar body — so much smaller now than it had been less than a month ago — Draco began shivering after only a few minutes out in the cold. He stopped beneath a beech tree beside the lake and conjured a bluebell flame that staved off the worst of the physical cold, at least. It didn’t seem to cure his shivering, though. 

Not ten minutes later, Draco looked up to find Potter walking his way, and Draco had his wand out in a flash. Potter stopped immediately, but he didn’t even make a move for his wand. This made Draco feel like screaming. 

“One more step and I’ll hex your bollocks off so fast you’ll forget you ever had them, Potter.”

“I’m not moving,” Potter responded mildly, and he even had the audacity to lift his hands up beside his head in a gesture that was supposed to be suppliant, but on Potter it only managed to look chivalrous. “Malfoy, I swear I wasn't taking the piss when I ..." He broke off, looking tense. "I had no _idea_ that was going to happen.” 

Draco scowled. “And what? If you had, you’d have done something about it?” 

This seemed to thrown Potter for a loop; he visibly clenched his jaw and one of his hands came down to rub at the back of his neck.

“That’s what I thought,” Draco sneered. “Now if you know what’s good for you, Potter, you’ll fuck off before I decide to finish what I started sixth year.” He could see the very real shock that appeared on Potter’s face, and although Draco knew he’d taken that much too far, he still felt a vindictive sort of pleasure. A few more seconds passed where Potter seemed to contemplate him, but then he was heeding Draco’s warning and backing away. Eventually he turned around, and a minute later he was out of sight.

Draco backed up against the beech tree’s trunk, sunk to the ground, and finished crying into his knees. 

 

* * *

 

“Potter’s back, did you hear?”

Draco’s eyebrows came together, confused. The past two days had been a blur. Having been the weekend, Draco had spent most of the time in his room, buried under his covers, hidden away from the world and all its terrible truths. He hadn’t even known Potter had been gone. Nor did he care. 

“And?” he questioned dully as he pulled one of his new blouses over his head, followed by his robes.

“Everyone’s saying he was at the Ministry,” Pansy informed him. “There’s a rumour going around that they’re trying to recruit him into Auror training early. Probably rubbish.”

“Why are you here?” Draco snapped, whipping around to glare at Pansy. He saw her lips tighten. “I’ll meet you down at breakfast.”

While clearly displeased, Pansy left him alone. She’d learned better than to push him past his limits, and in this new hormone-addled body of his, that lesson went double. 

When he walked into the Great Hall, the owls were just pouring in through the windows. His mother’s owl dropped an envelope identical to the one he’d gotten a few days ago beside his tea as soon as he’d poured it, and Draco stared at it with trepidation.

“Draco.” 

Pansy’s voice sounded slightly hoarse. When he looked over, she was pointing to that morning’s _Prophet_ , which proclaimed in loud letters: **MALFOY RULING OVERTURNED**.

It was with shaking hands that Draco opened his letter, and in his mother’s own familiar calligraphy, confirmed the impossible news. Somehow, his father’s sentence had been overturned. Life in Azkaban without parole … but no Kiss. According to his mother, in six months’ time, the possibility of visitation would be revisited. 

Perhaps “somehow” wasn’t accurate, though. It was clear now why Potter had apparently been gone all weekend, for there was only one way Lucius Malfoy’s sentence could have been reconsidered, and that was by recommendation of the Saviour of the Wizarding World.

Heart in his throat, Draco looked over at the Gryffindor table, but Potter was conspicuously absent. Granger and Weasley, however, were looking over at him.

“Draco, where are you going?” Pansy demanded when he’d stood up suddenly from the table. But he ignored her. He didn’t have Potter’s uncanny ability to track people down, but Draco was determined to find him. He’d start somewhere around where Gryffindor Tower was supposed to be, and if he couldn’t find him there, well … he’d corner him somehow.

It turned out to be easier than that, though. In a deserted fifth-floor corridor, he ran into Potter as he was presumably on his way down to the Great Hall. When he saw Draco, he stopped. For a moment, neither said a thing.

“You did this,” Draco said finally, holding out the paper he’d taken from the table. Potter looked down at it, saw the headline, and his jaw clenched. He neither confirmed nor denied it. “Say something, Potter!”

“What do you want me to say?” Potter said quietly. His calm demeanor was entirely unnerving, particularly in contrast to Draco’s shaking hands.

“I want you to tell me why you did this.”

But Potter only shrugged. After everything that had happened in the last month, Draco’s emotions had reached a straining point. He felt a surge of it overwhelm him, make his blood feel like lighter fluid in his veins, and when he stepped towards Potter, Potter didn’t move. He looked like he didn’t quite know what to expect, but he still braced himself in time to keep from falling backwards when Draco shoved his chest. And then again, harder this time. There were tears of exhaustion leaking down Draco’s face and he pushed Potter a third time, shouting as he did so. 

“Who the fuck do you think you are!” Draco cried, shoving once again. And once again, Potter did nothing to retaliate. He only looked at Draco with something in his eyes that far too closely resembled pity. “You don’t get to decide who’s forgiven, Potter! You don’t get to decide who gets the Kiss, and who stays in prison, and who gets a full pardon. You don’t _get_ to decide that!” With his last shove, Draco pushed Potter up against the corridor’s wall.

“You’re welcome, Malfoy,” Potter said gruffly, his voice low, green eyes fixated on Draco. And something inside Draco snapped. His small hand fisted in Potter's collar and he yanked him down, pulling him into a kiss that was at least as messy as the first one they’d shared. He felt Potter’s hand — large, warm, calloused — cup his cheek, and god, he _hated_ how his body reacted to that touch. His chest clenched and there was a hot pulse of need in his lower belly that was so unfamiliar and terrifying it made him gasp. He pulled away from Potter’s lips and stared up —  _up!_ — into Potter’s face with his own lips parted in shock.

Draco tried to run again, but Potter caught his arm with lightning-fast reflexes.

“We need to talk.”

Draco mulled over his options, watching Potter carefully, feeling utterly trapped. Only seconds after the fact, he couldn’t seem to remember what had possessed him to lose control of himself like that. He vehemently ignored the tiny part of his mind insisting he knew perfectly well the answer to this. It was still throbbing low in his stomach. 

“Fine. When?” he said finally. Potter looked somewhat relieved by this response. “I’m not missing class.”

“You’re the one who sought _me_ out just now, Malfoy.”

“Yes, well, I’d only planned to punch you and then leave.”

Potter had the gall to let a smirk appear on his face. Draco tugged his arm back, scowling.

“ _When_ , Potter?”

“Tonight.” Potter eyed him like he was looking for something, and when Draco looked away, he heard Potter sigh. “I don’t have practice in the morning. Let’s meet on the pitch at midnight.” 

“Fine,” Draco said again. “Midnight it is, then.”

 

* * *

 

When he walked out onto the pitch at five past, Potter was on his broom, circling the field. Draco almost turned and booked it back to his room for the third or fourth time since he’d set out for this rendezvous. Even aside from everything else, that pulse of heat he’d felt before when Potter had kissed him … it had sufficiently freaked Draco out. He was miles away from being comfortable dealing with _looking_ at his new genitalia, let alone thinking about becoming aroused. And yet he’d been unable to escape the fact earlier that he _had_ , indeed, been turned on when he’d been kissing Potter. There had been a clear sensation of …  _something_ happening down there, something that had left a tiny damp spot on his knickers. Draco had run down to his room between classes to change into a new pair. 

Now, seeing Potter up in the air, completely unaware he was being watched, Draco realized something was happening again. Potter had always looked at home on a broomstick, yet there was something enticing about the way his new muscles looked as they shifted beneath the skin every time he moved. Something about the way his stupid, messy hair looked when it was blown back by the wind.

Draco had to clamp his teeth shut when Potter finally spotted him and landed, windblown and breathing heavy with exertion.

“I was half convinced you wouldn’t show up again,” Potter said, looking far too pleased. His expression sobered, however, when he saw the lack of anything even partially resembling good humor on Draco’s face.

“I almost didn’t.”

“Why’d you change your mind?”

Draco didn’t answer verbally. He merely stared at Potter, meeting his eyes, knowing they were both replaying the same thing in their heads. Potter seemed to read his mind. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, nodding. Draco fidgeted where he stood.

“I’m not a girl, Potter.”

“I don’t _think_ you’re a girl, Malfoy,” Potter said tightly.

“Then why did you kiss me?”

“Why did you kiss _me_?” 

Draco hesitated. His fingers twisted in front of him. He wanted to scream.

“I don’t know.”

Potter raised an eyebrow. “There’s your answer.”

“That isn’t an answer, Potter,” Draco bit out. “And you’re the one who did it first, so you’re the one who owes an explanation. I wouldn’t have even _done_ it if you hadn’t first.” 

Potter let out a sigh and took a step towards Draco. Although his initial response was to take a compensatory step backwards, Draco fought the instinct. He wasn’t about to back down from Potter. 

“Maybe I just wanted to kiss you,” he said lightly. Draco frowned. “Ever think of that?”

“Don’t be a git, Potter.”

“Well it’s the only explanation I can come up with.” To Draco’s utter astonishment, Potter looked sickeningly sincere. Perhaps even a little uncomfortable. “I’ve been asking myself the same question the last few days. Bullshit aside, that was the only answer that made sense.”

“How in the bloody hell does _that_ make sense?” 

Potter shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t, does it? You know what else doesn’t make sense, now that we’re on the subject … I’d really like to kiss you _again_.”

Draco’s stomach did a funny sort of backflip and he found himself speechless. Potter took another step closer. Draco didn’t stop him. Something, some emotion, was making his throat feel tight.

“I don’t have any explanations, Malfoy. I can’t give you a cut-and-dry answer.” He was a mere half a foot from Draco now, and his blazing green eyes were bright even in the night’s heavy darkness. Draco felt frozen to the spot he was standing in, stomach swooping, lips beginning to tingle. Like his body had some sort of foresight that hadn’t caught up to Draco’s brain yet. That warm hand — hot now in contrast to the cold night air — was suddenly on Draco’s cheek again, and for some reason, he was having trouble stringing a coherent sentence together.

“Why did you save my father?” he choked out, voice sounding shaky and weak even in his own head.

“I didn’t do it for him.” 

It wasn’t like the last two times, when their mouths had come together violently, when teeth had clashed in the middle and neither had really been focusing on anything other than the fight. This time it was so slow as to be agonizing: Potter leaned forward just enough so that his lips brushed Draco’s, making his gut wrench with a dizzying pulse of arousal, and for a moment he lingered there. His breath washed over Draco’s face, and the smell of sweat and broom polish and something else, something that was so essentially _Potter_ , made Draco swoon. He hated himself for it, and yet it was intoxicating. When Potter’s mouth finally opened, Draco felt himself respond like he was observing from outside his own body, astounded when the first touch of Potter’s tongue against his own drew a gasp from between his lips. He felt Potter smile in response to this, and for some reason unbeknownst to Draco in that moment, it made his head feel fuzzy with want.

Potter’s lips moved not only slowly but _deliberately_ , and it occurred to Draco in a distant sort of way that he’d never kissed someone before who hadn’t done it as though it was a means to an end. Potter was just the opposite — his tongue was thorough in its exploration of Draco’s mouth, and when his hand slid from Draco’s cheek down to his neck, his fingers wrapped around the nape in a grip that was somehow gentle even while being possessive. Draco was barely conscious of the movement of his own hands, certainly not aware of when they’d lifted to Potter’s chest and curled into the material of his robes. 

At some point — and Draco wasn’t sure how long it had been — Potter’s mouth started drifting away from Draco’s lips, latching instead onto the skin of his jaw and sucking a path down to the sensitive area behind his ear. His heart in his throat, Draco feebly pushed Potter away. Not with the violence he had last time, however, for he didn’t think he’d have had that sort of strength at the moment, embarrassing as it was to admit even internally. It was just enough leverage to get Potter’s hot mouth off his skin, giving Draco the space his needed to collect his thoughts. Yet even without the contact, it proved nearly impossible to think under Potter’s burning gaze.

“What … what are we doing, Potter?” he managed, irritated with the breathy quality of his voice but unable to do anything about it.

“Why do you need a reason for everything?” Potter’s voice was deep and scratchy-sounding, like he was just barely containing himself right now. The idea made Draco’s knees feel weak. “For some things in life there _is_ no logical answer, Malfoy.”

“This isn’t one of those things,” Draco said quietly. Acutely aware of how much bigger Potter’s hands now were than his own, he pulled one away from his neck and the other from where it had landed on his hip, and Potter let them fall without a fight. “And if it is, then I need more time to think about it. Not everyone is you, Potter. We can’t all jump into the deep end with both feet.” 

“And me kissing you, that’s the deep end, is it?”

For the first time in what felt like a while, Draco’s mouth quirked into the shadow of a smirk.

“That’s the deepest end there is, Potter.”

When Potter smiled at this, Draco felt his chest expand like he’d swallowed a balloon.

“Alright,” Potter nodded slowly, eyes finally tearing from Draco’s face to find the broom he’d dropped, which he picked back up. “Look, Malfoy, I have no idea what I’m doing either, you know. I don’t know _what_ the hell this is; I just know that when something feels right, I usually go for it. So — er — I’ll be here, you know, whenever you figure out whatever you need to figure out. And that doesn’t mean I’m not still around to talk to about other stuff,” he added quickly, making Draco roll his eyes, though not unkindly. “I never offered you my help in the first place because I wanted something out of it. I don’t want you to think that.”

“I don’t think that, Potter,” Draco sighed. He couldn’t have, even if some part of him would have gotten a sick pleasure out of thinking Golden Boy could be that selfish. Potter was as irritatingly noble as they came, though.

Potter nodded, apparently satisfied. “So, do you, er, want to fly, then, since we’re out here? We could have a Seeker’s match.”

Just like that, Draco’s heart climbed back up into his throat and lodged itself there. Flashes of memory made drops of perspiration pop up all over the skin of his neck — roaring fire, Crabbe’s shrieks of agony, the heat, god, the _heat_ lapping at his legs as he pressed his head to Potter’s back, closed his eyes, and prayed to come out of it alive.

“Malfoy?”

Draco shook his head. “Er — no, that’s okay. I … I don’t have a broom.”

“You can use a school broom,” Potter reminded him, thick eyebrows dipped with what looked like confusion mixed with a little bit of suspicion. He was more perceptive than Draco had ever given him credit for.

“And lose because of inferior equipment? I don’t think so, Potter.”

“Fine. You can use my broom and _I’ll_ use a school broom.” 

“Your nobility knows no bounds,” Draco drawled. “It’s still a no.” 

Potter’s eyes held something inquisitive in them, like he realized there was something going on he hadn’t wrapped his head around yet. 

“Why don’t you wanna fly?” he asked finally, bluntly. Draco felt his cheeks burn and hated that it was a clear giveaway. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to fly, Potter. As I said, I don’t like using school brooms, and I’m hardly going to rob you of yours.” 

Potter rolled his eyes. Draco wanted to punch him.

“I may not know _why_ you’re being cryptic, Malfoy, but I know for certain that you _are_. Why can’t we just skip this whole song and dance for once? Why are you avoiding flying —?”

“Because I’m scared to, Potter,” Draco snapped before Potter had finished getting out the last word. “Merlin’s bloody beard, once again, not everyone is Saint Potter, saving people from a raging Fiendfyre without a bloody scratch on his psyche.” He paused, huffing out a breath, ignoring his flaming cheeks. Potter looked baffled, and mixed into it was a clear shine of concern in his eyes. This wasn’t the first time Draco had seen that in the last couple weeks, and yet he still wasn’t used to it. To being looked at by Potter not like he was an enemy to be defeated, but like someone worth saving. 

“I’m sorry, Malfoy … I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Please don’t apologize.” Draco swallowed hard, unable to meet Potter’s eyes. “Look, I’m exhausted. I think I’m gonna head back to my dorm.”

Astoundingly, Potter looked put off by this, but he nodded anyway.

“Sure, yeah. Maybe, er — maybe one of these days, I could help you try to fly again.” 

He was starting to think Potter genuinely didn’t do it on purpose. His hero-thing. The look on his face when he’d said that was so genuine as to be bordering on revolting.

To his own surprise, Draco nodded stiltedly.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Maybe.”

He’d been about to turn around and start heading back to the castle, but a tug in his gut stopped him. Potter was watching him, and under that steady gaze, Draco’s heartrate picked up again. Not knowing why he was doing it, knowing it was utterly and completely ridiculous, he walked back over to Potter and stopped in front of him, dizzy as soon as he was close enough for that intoxicating scent to grab hold of him.

Potter must have seen in Draco’s eyes was what he was thinking, because he beat him to it — he leaned forward and pressed their lips together, nothing as forceful as it had been before, but enough to make Draco feel like he’d been melted down to a puddle of useless sludge.

“I’ll see you around, Potter.”

Potter licked his lips and nodded, that infuriating smirk coming back to light up his face.

“See you round, Malfoy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	8. Chapter 8

The time had come, Harry grudgingly admitted, to talk to Hermione.

He was over the moon about the way things were looking with Malfoy, and yet that didn’t stop him from feeling worried, as well. After all, just because he’d successfully come to terms with the knowledge that snogging Draco bloody Malfoy was frighteningly addictive, he was still conscious of the fact that not only was Malfoy in a particularly vulnerable state at the moment, but he, Harry, wasn’t necessarily an advertisement for ideal mental health, either.

Malfoy wanted answers, explanations, logic. Harry, on the other hand, didn’t need the _why_ of it — what he needed was to clear his head and try to understand _how_ they'd gotten here. Hermione had mapped out Cho’s feelings for him fifth year like a damned flow chart, and that was what Harry wanted now. Whatever Malfoy might be thinking and feeling was, as far as Harry was concerned, anybody’s best guess. It was obvious enough that Malfoy was feeling _something_ in return; it was just that Harry didn’t know how to go about navigating this strange, utterly unforeseen dynamic the two of them had unwittingly developed over the last month, and he very much wanted to avoid anybody getting hurt if he could help it considering the special circumstances.

Ron couldn’t be there — that was Harry’s one condition with himself. As much as he hated to keep a secret from him, Harry knew perfectly well that Malfoy’s name alone would make Ron irrational, and for now, while Harry still didn’t know whatever _this_ was he planned to speak to Hermione about, it seemed most prudent to keep Ron in the dark.

The day after he and Malfoy had met on the pitch, Harry elected to go with Hermione to the library to study after they’d finished their last class of the day. Both Ron and Hermione looked at him oddly, but he managed to convince them he was merely serious about getting a good mark in Potions. Which … he _was_ , of course — just not as serious as he was about discussing Malfoy.

With Ron off on the pitch playing a scrimmage game with a few other students, Harry was able to work himself up to opening what felt like a Pandora’s Box of secrets he’d never again be able to stuff back into concealment once he’d shown Hermione its contents.

“Hermione,” he started, fingers tapping anxiously at the surface of the wooden table which was supporting Hermione’s mountain of books. She must have heard something in his voice, because she looked up from her notes with a creased brow.

“I knew you didn’t come with me just to study,” she said after a few moments, setting her quill down and piercing him with an inquisitive look. Harry felt naked beneath Hermione’s gaze, but he didn’t look down like he was itching to do. “I’d gathered something was going on the past couple weeks … you’ve been acting so hot and cold. I thought it was just the post-traumatic stress at first, and — well, I still think that’s part of it, but there’s something else. Isn’t there, Harry?”

“Yeah,” said Harry, nodding. He didn’t elaborate, for it felt to him like this might be one of those times where he didn’t _have_ to say it, because Hermione was approaching the answer on her own. It should have been astounding, yet it wasn’t anymore. 

Hermione held his eyes, like she was trying to make sure her suspicions were correct before saying them out loud. Harry could hardly blame her. Even knowing as he did that he and Malfoy had snogged out on the pitch, it was still difficult to wrap his brain around. 

“It’s Malfoy,” she guessed, and Harry heard the trepidation in her voice. “This … this has to do with Malfoy.” When he didn’t deny it, she seemed to take his silence as a confirmation and looked dazed by it. “At first, when he was hit by that hex, I admit that I was far more worried about you than I was about him. I knew … well, I _assumed_ that anything having to do with Malfoy would — erm — draw your focus, Harry. And because it was something quite serious, I thought for sure it would completely encapsulate your attention.”

“You weren’t wrong,” Harry said wryly, feeling a curious combination of annoyance — both at himself for being so obvious, and at Hermione for being so bloody perceptive — and fond exasperation. 

“I _was_ wrong, though,” Hermione went on carefully. “I mean, I was wrong about the way it would affect you. I thought anything that held your focus on Malfoy would only drag you back inside your own head … inside the war. It hasn't, though, has it?”

“I never _left_ the war, Hermione.”

She looked at him quizzically, but Harry could see it as understanding bloomed in her eyes, as she began fitting puzzle pieces together and seeing a much bigger picture than the one she’d no-doubt been struggling over lately.

“Malfoy finally made me realize that,” he explained.

“You’ve been talking to him,” Hermione said slowly, sounding like she’d just had a hypothesis confirmed that she hadn’t _truly_ believed could be the case. He couldn’t help smiling when he thought about the way she must have been agonizing over this, how it must have frustrated her to see evidence for something and at the same time to have known how unlikely it was. “And he’s … he _talks_ to you? Willingly, I mean?” 

“Merlin, Hermione, what do you think I’m doing, chaining him up and threatening him?”

“Of course not!” she defended fiercely, but when she saw the grin on Harry’s face, he saw her relax a little bit. “I just meant —”

“I know what you meant,” Harry assured her, shifting a bit in his seat even as his hands drifted towards each other subconsciously so his fingers could start picking away at the skin around his nails. “And believe me, however confusing this is for you, that goes double for me.”

Hermione reached across her books and covered Harry’s hands with one of her own. He became aware of his picking and stopped. She had been trying to break him of this painful habit since they’d returned to school.

“How often do you talk?” she went on, squeezing his hands once before pulling hers back. “You must meet up at night, when everyone else is asleep?”

“That’s actually — er — that’s sort of where things start to get complicated.” 

“ _Start_ to get complicated?” she parroted, and Harry could see the frank perplexity on her face. She hadn’t been expecting more, which told him her speculations hadn’t gotten as far as he’d guessed. And that meant getting out the rest was going to be much more difficult.

“It’s not … that is, we haven’t — erm —  _only_ been talking.” Harry looked across the table at Hermione meaningfully, and yet it was several more long moments before he saw comprehension begin to dawn in her eyes.

“Harry …” she began, a note of hysterical and defiant disbelief coloring her tone. “Oh, Harry, you haven’t …”

“I kissed him,” he nodded, and although he felt his cheeks blooming with heat, he didn’t let himself look away. He might have been nervous about Hermione’s reaction to this, but he was _not_ ashamed, and he refused to look like he was. “The first time it was —” 

“The first time?!” she gasped, and then quickly reigned herself back in, perhaps remembering where they were. “Harry, I —” 

“Wait, Hermione, just … let me _tell_ you before you say anything,” he cut her off, and to his immense relief, she nodded slowly. “At first we _were_ just talking. It was like you said, Malfoy’s …  _predicament_ , it held my attention. I didn’t realize it right away, but eventually I figured out that he was distracting me from … everything else. The war. The aftermath. Rebuilding over the summer, it wasn’t as bad then, because I was _doing_ something. Now, at school, it just feels like there’s so much more time to think, and nothing to distract me. And Malfoy, the hex … it was a distraction. I … I let myself get carried away,” he admitted, his face hot, but the look on Hermione’s face wasn’t one of judgment. Just focused determination, probably to understand.

He told her everything. About their accidental meeting on the pitch the first time. About bursting in on Malfoy in the prefects’ bath, and how they’d made an unsteady agreement to talk more. How Harry had gone into the forest, nearly inducing a panic attack, and then owled Malfoy to meet again. And how Malfoy had blown him off.

Their fight on the Astronomy Tower.

He explained to her finally why he’d gone off to the Ministry last weekend to get Lucius Malfoy’s ruling overturned, because he’d realized it wasn’t _just_ Lucius Malfoy who would have suffered.

And he told her about each kiss — the first two, which had been more like a fight than anything else, and the ones the night before, which had left Harry feeling both lighter than air and dizzy with want. Not to mention more confused than he’d ever been in his life. 

Hermione listened attentively, looking shocked sometimes and contemplative other times, but never upset. Never disappointed. It was this that reminded Harry why he’d decided to come to her in the first place. 

Once he’d finished, Hermione took a few moments to gather her thoughts. 

“Well, Harry, I’d be lying if I said I’d seen this coming,” she said carefully, “but … I’d also be lying if I said it doesn’t make some sort of sense the longer I think about it.”

“Sorry,” Harry’s eyebrows dipped, “some sort of sense? Hermione, there's no  _sense_ to be made out of me and Malfoy snogging, believe me. I don't need sense, I just need help figuring out what to do so nobody gets hurt."

“But, Harry, it _does_ make sense.” Harry was surprised to see that a small smile had appeared on Hermione’s face. “Since we were eleven years old, you’ve always been a very central figure in Malfoy’s world. How many times did we get caught doing something we shouldn’t have been doing because Malfoy had devoted time and energy into piecing things together and trying to get you into trouble?”

“Loads,” Harry mumbled.

“Exactly. And what happened sixth year, when suddenly Malfoy wasn’t paying every ounce of his attention to you anymore?”

This caught Harry off guard, comprehension dawning slowly, like a light being turned on a degree at a time. 

“I — er —” 

“You became _obsessed_ , Harry,” Hermione said bluntly. “And I know it was because you suspected him, _correctly_ , of wrongdoing! I know that, but I also think ... well, that maybe you picked up on it _because_ you were so focused on him. To tell you the truth, while I of course loathed Malfoy for the things he said to me when we were younger, for the way he treated people and the bigoted filth that always came pouring out of his mouth, I never hated him the way you did. I never _cared_ like you did. I’m thinking now that … I don’t know, that maybe sometimes passion can be expressed in unexpected ways.” Hermione must have seen the utter bewilderment Harry was feeling written plainly on his face, because she continued carefully, “What I’m saying, Harry, is that you and Malfoy have always had a … an _intense_ relationship. Maybe it isn’t so surprising that when he suddenly looks like a very pretty girl, you might — erm — respond to that intensity in a way you wouldn’t have done before. When he looked like a boy.” 

Harry was quiet for a minute, absorbing this highly logical trail of thought Hermione had followed, trying to let it sink in. It did make some sort of sense, that much was difficult to argue, and yet knowing that didn’t make it all that much easier to digest.

“Why did I always care so much?” he asked eventually. “Why did he get to me so much more than anybody else? It’s just _Malfoy_.” 

“It wasn’t just you, Harry. As I said, it was him, too.” She shrugged. “I won’t pretend to understand it or anything, I certainly don’t know what’s going on inside either of your heads, especially not his. It’s just what I can speculate, now that you’ve told me what’s been happening. There’s always been a lot of passion between the two of you, and sometimes passion can make lines blurry.”

“Passion,” Harry echoed, eyes finally leaving Hermione’s face as he contemplated everything she had said. “You think — er — that’s all it is, then? You don’t think it’s … I mean, what you’re saying is that whatever it is I’m feeling, it’ll blow over eventually. Heat of the moment type of thing.”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Harry. I’m certainly not trying to diminish anything. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you after all these years it’s that the things that mean a lot to you … they mean a _lot_ to you,” Hermione said. She looked conflicted, and Harry thought he knew why. He felt conflicted himself for the same reason. It _was_ Malfoy, after all. “You said you’re not looking to understand it, just trying to figure out what to _do_ about it. I admire that so much about you, your ability to just let emotions be emotions without needing to open them up and study them. But I think in this situation, understanding it a little better might be a prerequisite to figuring out how to proceed.”

“Right, okay. So … can you help me, then? Try to understand what Malfoy's feeling? What does he want? How do I talk to him?”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione sighed. “I have no earthly idea how to talk to Malfoy.”

Harry’s head fell back against his neck, eyes falling closed in frustration. This was not at all how he’d imagined this would go.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” he said desperately, looking at her again with pleading eyes. “You explained Cho to me like you’d read a book on her.”

“Malfoy is _not_ Cho, Harry,” Hermione said flatly, and to his astonishment, there was an underlying tone of amusement in her voice. “I don’t think I have to tell you that, for one thing, I have nothing but bad feelings towards Malfoy. I'm extraordinarily sympathetic to his situation, of course, but that doesn’t change how I feel. I couldn’t _begin_ to help you understand what’s going on in his head or what he wants. I don’t know him — I don’t know anything _about_ him except that he grew up in a world that is utterly foreign to me. If anything, Harry … it sounds like you’re the one who understands him quite a bit more than you think. Enough to feel comfortable opening up to him about the war in a way you haven’t done with anyone else. Isn’t that what you said?” 

 _For them, the war is over_.

Surprised, Harry nodded. “Yeah, I … I suppose that’s true. I guess what I’m trying to figure out is … you know ...”

“The morality of it?” Hermione provided helpfully. Harry let out a sigh of relief.

“Exactly. He _isn’t_ a girl, Hermione. He keeps saying that, like I’ve forgotten. How could I forget? I mean, he … like you said, he’s really beautiful as a girl, but I haven’t —”

“I think I said ‘very pretty,’ actually,” Hermione interrupted, looking far too amused. Harry scowled.

“In any case,” he went on, ignoring Hermione’s quiet chuckling, “I haven’t _forgotten_ he’s a boy. It’s Malfoy, for Christ’s sake. That isn’t something I could forget, regardless of what he looks like. I just … well, _that’s_ why I’m confused, isn’t it? I’m … _physically_ attracted to him because of the way he looks, but …” Harry felt his voice die out, words tapering off as the meaning behind his own words caught up with him. Hermione had an eyebrow raised, as though she was waiting for him to catch up. 

“But you’re emotionally attracted to him because it’s Malfoy,” she said finally, having apparently decided Harry wasn’t going to. Harry looked at her with round eyes, heart beating suddenly much faster. “There’s a word for that, you know. Panromanticism. It means to have romantic feelings for somebody regardless of their gender. Perhaps it was never obvious to you before because sexually, you’ve always been attracted to women. Now that Malfoy _looks_ like a woman …” She trailed off, shrugging. “I’m no expert on the subject, of course. I suppose it could account for some of the animosity you always felt towards him. Frustration over a discord between your mind and your body. On the one hand you have your head completely focused on Malfoy, all these confusing emotions swimming around that are centered on him, and on the other hand you have no way of expressing it because you’re not aware of any sexual attraction. And he was horrible to you, beyond that. And you were a kid, what could you have done?”

Harry shook his head, holding his hands up in a gesture of complete bewilderment.

“Slow down, Hermione.” He let out a huffed breath, aware of a dull, throbbing pain that was forming at the back of his skull. “I don’t know about any of that, I just … I mean, you’re right, I think I do sort of ... have feelings for him, as fucking weird as that is to say. I just don’t want anybody getting hurt is the problem. I don’t want …  _Malfoy_ getting hurt. He’s dealing with enough without me using him to figure out how I feel.”

A fond look came over Hermione’s face. She reached over again, setting her hand on top of his.

“You’re such a good person, Harry. And I may not like Malfoy, but I am always going to support you. I just want to make sure that while you’re looking out for Malfoy, you don’t forget to look out for yourself, as well. It may _seem_ like it sometimes, but you’re _not_ actually invincible.” 

Harry grinned. “I know, Hermione. Don’t worry.”

“Good. What’s your next step, then?”

“Play it by ear, I guess.” Harry leaned back in his chair, fingers lacing behind his head. “Let him contact me. I think he will.”

“I think he will, too,” Hermione nodded. Harry’s chest swelled with anticipation. It was so blissfully wonderful to feel excited about something again. “As I said, I don’t really _know_ Malfoy. But if I had to guess, Harry, I’d say it’s possible he’s had these feelings for you for a very long time.”

 

* * *

 

The day before Halloween — and more importantly, according to the students of Hogwarts, the Halloween Ball — Draco woke up feeling like his body was trying to devour itself from the inside out. He turned onto his side in bed, curling up into the fetal position and squeezing his eyes shut in pain. It lasted for several minutes before the worst of it began to fade, leaving a dull, throbbing ache in its place. At first, he thought his body was finally having some severe adverse side effects to the hex. That was until he remembered the way Pansy always turned into a monster once a month, and he realized with a shock that he was experiencing menstrual cramps. 

After running to the toilet and seeing that there didn’t seem to be any blood anywhere, he returned to his bed with his heart in his throat. He hadn’t the first clue how menstruation worked, when he would start bleeding, how he should deal with it when he did. Yet he was reluctant to bring it up to Pansy — he didn’t think he could bear it. Not yet. Anyway, she was still being cross with him for snapping at her on Monday. Only a Slytherin, he marveled, could hold a petty grudge with so much determination.

Resolving to speak to her tonight, Draco dressed and headed off to breakfast with only a faint sensation of pain leftover from the cramps; by the time he walked into Defense, the sight of Potter pushed the whole thing onto the back-burner of his mind. 

It had been three days.

In that time, Draco had agonized over seeing him again. He wanted to far more than he was comfortable admitting to himself — which, of course, was what had consistently stopped him from sliding Potter another note.

There _had_ been communication, though. On a nonverbal level, at least.

Sometimes, in the middle of class, Draco would find his eyes drawn to Potter’s unruly head of hair, and if he was especially bored, sometimes he would simply stare for awhile. His eyes would trace the hard line of Potter’s jaw — usually just this side of stubbly, no doubt because Potter felt he couldn’t be arsed, the same way he apparently felt about his clothing if those ripped denims and washed-out tees were anything to go by — and then linger briefly on his throat, the way his Adam’s apple moved when he swallowed. Often Draco became completely captivated watching Potter’s hands, too. He remembered the way they felt on his cheek, and not for the first time he marveled over what those hands had done.

From time to time, Potter would glance up and meet Draco’s stare, and the look in those vivid green eyes never failed to make Draco shiver.

Today, Potter’s attention seemed to be reluctantly on the lecture, however. In deference to the theme of the Halloween Ball, Boothby had veered away from their course material and dedicated the period to a discussion on the theory behind the Avada Kedavra curse, and what scholars knew about why Potter had twice survived it. Everyone else in the class seemed to be fascinated by the topic, yet Draco sensed a scepticism in not only Potter but Granger and even Weasley, as well. He burned with curiosity over what they knew, what they clearly hadn’t shared with the rest of the world.

“Angelus Hirschkorn is an expert in the field of spell semiotics,” Boothby told the class, flicking his wand at the board so the name spelled itself out in a tidy script. “He wrote a famous paper on the subject, stating his theory that the emotion behind the curse, as well as the way the curse was _performed_ , had something to do with Mr. Potter’s survival and the mark it left behind. Of course,” he chuckled, nodding his head at Potter, “I suspect Mr. Hirschkorn has reconsidered his hypothesis given the lack of any scars left behind the second time.” 

“Not as far as _you_ know, at least,” Potter said, and it took a moment for the rest of the class to digest this very dry, almost facetious-sounding joke. There was laughter after a minute, and Draco wondered whether any of them had caught onto the irritation in Potter’s words.

Likely not, as Boothby kept right on going, and the rest of them continued to raise their hands and ask questions just as if Potter was an exhibit they’d borrowed from a museum to discuss in class.

He forgot about all of this, however, when suddenly, with the abruptness of a flash of lightning, Draco became aware that something felt …  _sticky_ between his legs. His heart launched itself up into his throat and he shifted subtly in his chair, panicking when he felt what he knew instinctively and without a doubt to be blood.

Without thinking about it first, Draco stood up from his chair while Boothby was in the middle of a sentence, horrified when he felt the back of his robe stick to his legs for a moment. 

If there was any blood that had soaked through onto his chair, Draco didn’t take the time to stop and find out — without even grabbing his bag, he was hurrying out of the room and leaving behind a stunned silence.

The nearest bathroom was just down the corridor, and it was after a moment’s deliberation — where Draco decided running into a group of boys would be far worse — that he went inside the girls’. 

Throwing his robes off and letting them fall to the floor in a fit of anger and humiliation, Draco went inside one of the stalls and looked down to see that blood had stained the apex of his slacks, expensive ones from Pansy’s mother.

Feeling sick, he used a spell he’d learned more than a year ago which removed bloodstains. Not knowing what else to do, he cleaned himself off with another charm, bundled up a bunch of toilet paper, and stuffed it inside his clean knickers. As he was doing his pants back up, he heard the bathroom door creak open and froze with his fingers on the zip.

“Malfoy? Are you in here?”

Dazed, Draco registered distantly that the voice sounded a lot like Granger’s. Pausing a moment, he finally pushed the stall door open to see that he had been right — Granger was indeed standing there next to his robes, looking as uncomfortable as he’d ever seen her but determined. 

“Er — hello,” she said, and Draco could only gape. “Pansy — erm — she didn’t look like she was going to come help you. I … I thought …” And to Draco’s utter astonishment, she held up what appeared to be a small cotton pad. “They’re not hard to use. The back is sticky. And they’re charmed so they’ll last longer.”

With tears drying on his cheeks, Draco marveled at the situation he was currently in. Pansy, probably feeling vindicated right now, had chosen to let him deal with this on his own as a retaliation for the way he’d spoken to her. Meanwhile, Draco had spelled away the blood, but it would certainly come back, and a handful of toilet paper wasn’t going to do much. And now here was Granger, Hermione bloody Granger, whom Draco had called any number of insulting names in the past, offering help. 

Draco suspected Potter had something to do with this. And some part of him, some _proud_ part of him, would have loved nothing more than to turn away the help. To yell at Potter later, because Granger was the last person Draco wanted to be privy to all this.

In spite of that, in opposition to everything he’d ever thought he knew about himself, Draco reached out and took the cotton pad from Granger’s hand.

“When do I change it?” he asked softly. He saw surprise register in Granger’s eyes, but she did a good job of covering it up.

“I would say you can go four or five hours. It must be heavy right now.” Stiltedly, Draco nodded once. Granger dug into her bag and pulled out two more, as well as a small vial of purple liquid. “Here. It’s an infusion of belladonna and brittlebush leaves. It’ll help with cramps, if you’re having any.”

Draco took the extra pads and the vial, looking at Granger like he wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. Granger looked conflicted. 

“I suppose if I was in your position, I would want somebody to help _me_.”

Draco rolled his next words around inside his head before saying them: “Potter said something to you.”

Granger’s cheeks took on a hint of color. She nodded.

“And?” he prompted.

“And … I hope that you’ll make sure to take care of yourself so that Harry can do the same.”

Draco’s eyebrows knitted.

“What do you mean by that? Take care of myself how?”

Granger appeared to think for a moment, and when she finally spoke, it was with a clear tentativeness in her voice.

“Harry puts …  _all_ of himself into the things he does,” she said. For some reason, this statement made Draco’s chest feel tight. “Don’t do anything you’re not one hundred percent sure about, Malfoy. Because when Harry gets involved in something —”

“He really gets involved in it,” Draco finished for her. To his surprise, he saw a smile flicker across her face for a moment before disappearing again. “Yes. I’m aware of that, Granger. And if I take your meaning, I’ll try not to do anything I end up regretting.” 

Again, Granger nodded.

“I appreciate the help,” he indicated the pads and the vial of potion. “If you don’t mind my asking, Granger … why are you okay with this?”

“Because I love Harry,” she answered immediately. Envy burned in Draco’s chest. There wasn’t one person in his life besides his mother who would have answered that way about _him_. “And if this is what makes him happy, then he deserves a chance to figure that out.”

“I take it Weasley doesn’t know?” 

“Of course not.” A corner of her mouth twitched. “Ron would never recover from the shock. We’ll cross that bridge if we ever come to it.”

Outside the bathroom, the sound of students filing out of classrooms let them know the period had ended. 

“Right, well … you can get more pads from Madam Pomfrey. The potion, as well. I don’t know what’s going on with you and Pansy, but if you have any more questions, let me know.” 

Draco nodded, disconcerted by the small amount of guilt that was welling up inside his chest. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said, and it was closer than he’d come to saying ‘thank you’ in a very long time.   

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	9. Chapter 9

When they were fifteen years old, Draco had once caught Pansy staring at Anthony Goldstein during a study hall. She had given him the excuse that when women were menstruating, it was an evolutionary response to become more aware of masculinity — something about human genes’ instinctive drive to procreate. Draco had rolled his eyes and proceeded to tease her relentlessly for having a crush on Goldstein.

Now, Draco thought maybe she had had a point. That was really the only excuse, after all, for the way he absolutely _could not_ stop staring at Potter. The way even the slightest shift in the muscles hidden beneath Potter’s sun-kissed skin sent Draco into something that felt like a hormonal frenzy.

At breakfast on Saturday, he was uncomfortably aware of the heat incessantly pooling between his legs every time he so much as glanced in the direction of the Gryffindor table and caught sight of Potter’s easy smile and bright eyes. Part of the problem, Draco knew, was that he hadn’t gotten himself off in well over a month. Having been adamantly avoiding his new genitals, that sort of release had become frankly impossible.

For the first time _ever_ , Draco thought he understood where the term “going into heat” had come from. His entire body felt flushed more often than not, and no matter what he used in an attempt to distract himself — books, homework, even desperately reorganizing his entire room — the memory of kissing Potter never quite departed the forefront of his mind, and it left Draco in a perpetual state of being unbearably turned on. This perhaps would fade into something much more manageable once his period had ended, but for the time being, and because he had no idea how long it would last, Draco was stuck with this utterly humiliating infatuation. 

Pansy, meanwhile, had decided to move past her grudge in favor of using Draco as a human-sized doll in preparation for the ball. She’d outfitted him in some of her most elegant, emerald-green dress robes and slathered his face in so much makeup he felt rather like he was wearing a mask, at which point he’d wiped the whole thing clean and told her to try again. In the end, he looked in the mirror to find that a little bit of eyeliner, mascara, and eyeshadow had made his grey eyes much more pronounced, and there was a permanent flush to his cheeks that he attributed to rouge. His hair, already short, hardly needed styling at all.

When they walked into the Great Hall at just past seven, the ball was already in full swing. Tables littered the perimeter while the very middle was being used as a dance floor. At the far end, a large, marble half-wall had been erected, and on it were hundreds of names — everyone, apparently, who had given their lives in the fight against the Dark Lord. Floating above it, surrounded by hovering candles, was a picture of a red-headed woman and a man beside her who looked startlingly like Potter. They were dancing in their little frame, taking part in the festivities in their own way, Draco supposed. He had grown up knowing James and Lily Potter’s names, yet he realized now he’d never actually seen a decent picture of them.

Pansy was less fascinated by the couple in the photograph, and when Draco moved towards the monument to take a closer look, she left him to find Blaise.

“He looks just like his dad, doesn’t he?”

Draco turned to find Granger standing beside him, looking at him contemplatively. He nodded.

“He got the color of his eyes from his mum,” Draco noted, nodding towards the picture, and when Granger gave him a knowing grin, he rolled his eyes. “Everyone knows Potter’s eyes are green, Granger. Don’t look too far into it.”

Granger merely chuckled, looking far too pleased with herself.

“Harry knows you’ve been watching him, you know,” she said suddenly. Draco turned wide eyes on her, feeling remarkably like he’d just been caught red-handed. Perhaps he had, in fact. Perhaps his staring hadn’t been quiet as sneaky as he’d have liked to believe. 

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” he demanded, but Granger only laughed and sidestepped the question.

“He’s around here somewhere, dodging the cameras, I’d expect. I’m sure he’d like to see you, Malfoy.” He watched in amazement as her eyes traveled quickly over his robes and back up to his face. “You look really nice. Make sure you don’t leave without saying hello to him, alright?” 

Leaving Draco feeling puzzled indeed, Granger walked off presumably to find Weasley. Her kindness was entirely foreign to him, particularly because he knew well that she was doing it solely for Potter’s benefit, not because of any desire on her part to help out. That was what made it so baffling — Draco had never been acquainted with anyone before who would have put aside their own animosities just to make their friend happy. 

And was that what he was doing? Making Potter _happy_? It both sounded and felt absurd, yet Draco was inclined to believe Granger knew what she was talking about.

It was almost entirely students tonight — all fourth-year and above — but there were Ministry officials dotted here and there as well, not to mention a couple witches and wizards who were clearly from the _Prophet._ Potter-talk was abundant, Draco noted, as he made his way around the vast room, slipping between chatting couples and groups of friends. He’d always suspected Potter secretly liked all the attention, but it became obvious Granger was telling the truth about the likelihood that he was hiding out somewhere when half an hour had passed and Draco still hadn’t spotted that notorious black mop of hair. 

In fact, he’d just about given up — completely fed up with the uncomfortable shoes Pansy had coerced him into wearing — when he felt arms slipping around his waist from behind. A chill rocketed up his spine, raising goose bumps on his arms, but when he looked down, the hands that he felt so clearly on his hips weren’t there.

Even before Potter spoke, Draco would have known it was him, and not just because Potter was the only one capable of invisibly sneaking up on people. It was his smell. It made Draco feel dizzy with lust. 

“Are you having fun?” Potter’s voice whispered beside his ear, and Draco was disappointed not to feel the heat of his breath through the material of the Cloak. Only Potter would have preferred to remain invisible at a ball that was meant to be in his honor. 

“Not particularly,” Draco drawled, and to his delight, he felt Potter’s fingers squeeze tighter on his hips, his back pressed against a firm chest. “The topic of the night is not really to my taste.” He heard Potter’s soft chuckle and a brief smile came over Draco’s face before he determinedly got rid of it. “Nobody can get enough of you these days, can they, Potter? I do believe you’re on your way to becoming a Wizarding legend. It’s pitiful. You hardly even did anything.”

“You’re a prat, do you know that, Malfoy?” Potter laughed. Draco merely shrugged. Privately, most of his focus was on the way it felt to be pressed so closely to Potter, to feel the heat of his body even beneath that stupid Cloak he was wearing. “I was thinking of skiving off for a bit. There’s an antechamber off the Hall where they made us wait when my name came out of that fucking Goblet fourth year. I checked, nobody’s in there. Will you join me?”

Draco’s eyes rolled, a habitual response to the mention of just one of the myriad things Potter was famous for. 

“I suppose I could,” he said lightly, and it was no small feat to sound so breezy when his insides seemed to be on fire and every cell making up his body was screaming for Potter’s hands to reach just a little bit further, to pull him back into his chest just a _little_ bit harder.

But then the heat was gone, and suddenly Draco was being pulled by an invisible Harry Potter through the Hall. It must have looked silly, he thought vaguely, with one hand grasping nothing in particular in front of him. Yet somehow, whatever anyone else might be thinking paled into insignificance next to the fact that Potter was dragging him off to a private room.

When they were inside and the door had closed behind them, Potter pulled off the Cloak and — completely unnecessarily — ruffled out his hair. His dress robes fit him well, and he even appeared to have done something about the scruff on his face, though a five o’clock shadow was already noticeable.

All of this was enough to make Draco’s breathing feel a bit shallower.

“Merlin, they couldn’t have just had a Halloween feast like every other year, could they?” he said, running a hand through his hair again, clearly a bit frazzled. 

“As I said, Potter — they can’t get enough of you.” 

With a smirk on his face that made Draco’s knees feel like rubber, Potter came over to him and pressed him lightly up against the wall, his hands a delightful weight on Draco’s hips. 

“And you’ve had _more_ than enough of me, is that about right?”

Draco tilted his head back so his eyes could meet Potter’s. They were sparkling with mirth and something else, something _darker_ that twisted Draco’s gut. He _knew_ — he knew that Draco was just two seconds away from completely falling apart, Draco could see it on his face and in that devious smirk he was sporting. 

Draco closed his eyes and tried to lean forward, at his wit’s end, _needing_ to taste Potter’s mouth, but Potter held him fast against the wall. Instead, he felt Potter’s lips brush along his jaw, dotting wet kisses all the way back to his ear.

“You’ve been staring at me lately,” he breathed across Draco’s neck. Draco braced himself with his hands in Potter’s robes, arching his head back to give Potter more room, unashamed of his need even when he heard him chuckle. “I can feel your eyes on me in every class we have together. Why?”

Draco let out a shaky breath. Caught red-handed, indeed.

“You know why.”

Potter made a rumbling sound deep in his throat that was far too reminiscent of a growl. His grip on Draco’s hips became painfully tight, but Draco hardly noticed, for Potter had pressed himself close enough that his thigh had slipped between Draco’s legs, rubbing against him where he was so _especially_ sensitive right now. 

What really sent Draco into a tailspin, however, was the firm press of what was undeniably the hard outline of Potter’s cock against his leg.

Draco let out a pitiful whimper, shivering where he was pushed up against a wall with Potter’s hot mouth on his neck and his stiff cock grinding into his thigh. His hands moved from Potter’s robes to his stupid, wonderful hair, grabbing fistfuls of it and _pulling_ , which drew another low, animalistic noise out of Potter’s throat.

Even if he hadn’t been in the middle of a menstrual cycle, Draco knew he wouldn’t have been even remotely comfortable letting Potter’s hands anywhere near …  _that_. He didn’t, however, have any qualms about touching _Potter_. He felt starved with the desire to get his hands on that dark skin. 

“Potter,” Draco breathed, dropping his hands from Potter’s hair down to the front of his robes, where he slipped them inside and brushed his fingers across the waistline of the slacks he was wearing underneath. He heard Potter’s breath hitch and the movement of his lips on Draco’s skin halted. He pulled back and met Draco’s gaze. His pupils were so dilated there were only thin stripes of green left circling them. “Can I?” 

“That’s what you want?” Potter questioned, voice low and gravelly. Draco swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah. Go ahead, then.”

Feeling dizzy, Draco fumbled open the front of Potter’s trousers with slightly shaky hands. He pulled the dress shirt up from where it had been tucked in, and at the first sight of tanned skin and a dark trail of hair, Draco felt arousal pulse low in his belly. He knew Potter was watching him, could feel that dark gaze on his skin, and yet Draco couldn’t be arsed to feel embarrassed.

He slipped a hand inside the front of Potter’s trousers — warm, damp puffs of air hitting his face when Potter’s breathing noticeably increased — and when his fingers made contact with the hot, hard flesh of his cock, Draco choked out a whimper of sound. Potter groaned. 

Wasting no time, Draco pulled Potter’s cock out of the confines of his slacks and marveled at the weight of it in his hand. The head was flushed dark red and sticky with precome, and when Draco brushed a thumb across it, he felt Potter’s hips twitch. 

When he was younger, Draco had liked to amuse himself by imagining Potter had a tiny cock, something terribly embarrassing that would make up for all that undeserved fame and attention. 

This, Draco now saw, was not the case.

“Merlin forbid the bloody saviour of the Wizarding world _not_ have a huge prick,” Draco bit out, sliding his hand down the shaft and squeezing too hard on the upstroke. One of Potter’s hands caught Draco's wrist, and the strength he felt in that touch made him giddy. 

“ _You’re_ the one who’s getting worked up just looking at it, Malfoy.”

Draco wanted to scream. This wasn’t Potter — it simply _couldn’t_ be Potter. And yet it _had_ to be him, because no one else’s voice could have made Draco squirm the way he was doing now. He was the one with Potter’s cock in his hand, yet somehow it was all too clear who held the power in this situation, and it certainly wasn’t Draco.

With Potter’s grip barely loosened on his wrist, Draco started moving his hand again, using the pre-come to reduce the friction until he gave up and tugged his arm away so he could lick his palm, eliciting a sotto voce "fuck" out of Boy Wonder himself. When he returned it, he was able to move his hand more easily, and soon he’d built up a rhythm that had Potter’s eyes slipping shut and his head falling forward into Draco’s neck again. He resumed those torturously slow kisses, teeth nipping angry little welts that he soothed with his tongue, and all the while, Draco’s eyes were resolutely focused on the sight of Potter’s thick cock and the way he could feel it throbbing in his grip.

When Potter’s mouth finally settled over Draco’s lips, Draco sighed into the kiss, cheeks coloring at the breathy moan that escaped. One of Potter’s hands was suddenly gripping Draco’s jaw, holding him in place while Potter’s tongue did the filthiest, most wonderful things to his mouth.

“Potter, wait,” Draco breathed, pulling back as much as he was able to, his hand pausing its movement and squeezing the slippery head of Potter’s cock. This drew a gasp out of him, and Draco bit his lip to hide a satisfied smile. “Go sit down. Over there.”

Potter craned his neck around to see where Draco was looking — the room held a set of armchairs and a couch in the middle. Draco’s stomach swooped at the thought of what he wanted so badly to do.

When Potter looked back at him, Draco saw that he had an inkling as to what was on Draco’s mind. He raised an eyebrow, deepening the color on Draco’s cheeks.

“Why?” he asked. The smirk on his face said that he knew perfectly well _why_. “You want my cock in your mouth, is that it, Malfoy?”

Draco gritted his teeth. “For Merlin’s sake — do you want me to suck you off or not?”

Unexpectedly, Potter erupted into laughter.

“Only if that’s what _you_ want,” he said once he’d sobered, and the look in his eyes was full of genuine concern in spite of his harshly teasing words before. Draco felt his mouth watering. He thought Potter was somehow aware of this. 

“Just go sit down, Potter.”

After another long, searching look, Potter did as Draco had asked, his cock curved up against his stomach with the head peeking out above the elastic line of his boxer shorts. The dress robes he wore were a stark contrast to his debauched appearance. As he sat down in one of the armchairs, Draco patted down the front of his own silky green robes and ran a self-conscious hand through his hair before joining him. 

It should have been humiliating, dropping to his knees between Potter’s legs; and it _was_ humiliating, only not in the way he expected. Because it wasn’t just anyone — it was Potter looking down at him with those big green eyes that were nearly black with lust. It was _Potter_ whose fingers slid through Draco’s hair and caressed the back of his head when Draco pulled Potter’s cock out once again, and this time leaned closer, buzzing with desire. He used one hand to tentatively cup Potter’s heavy balls, the other tight around the base of his cock. He felt Potter shifting forward and looked up to meet his eyes, seeing that most of the humour on Potter’s face had been replaced by something lustful and hungry. 

Draco started off slow, running his lips across the skin on the inside of Potter’s thigh, inhaling the smell and letting it fuel the heat inside his belly. Potter’s fingers were alternately gripping and loosening on his hair, but it wasn’t until he started mouthing at the underside of his cock — running his tongue along the thick vein he found there — that he felt Potter’s nails against his skull.

“Jesus, Malfoy,” Potter breathed. Draco settled in even closer, finally —  _finally_ — wrapping his lips around the fat head and sliding his tongue along the sensitive foreskin, delighting in the way he could feel Potter shiver from the contact. He’d always liked sucking cock, and because it was Potter, and Potter had _always_ brought out Draco’s competitive streak — not to mention his heightened arousal at the moment — he threw himself into this as if he’d be receiving a mark on it at the end. 

Even as he sank down over Potter’s thick length, it was hard for him to believe he was doing this, that he was sucking Harry Potter’s cock in a chamber just off the Great Hall, where hundreds of witches and wizards were celebrating Potter himself. He imagined the looks on their faces if they knew their Golden Boy, their Saviour, was just barely restraining himself from fucking an ex-Death Eater’s mouth.

That restraint didn’t last long, though.

The grip on Draco’s hair tightened when he hollowed out his cheeks and _sucked_ on the way back up, his hand covering the base where he couldn’t quite get his mouth all the way down. Potter’s hips twitched up, pressing against the back of his throat, and Draco moaned loudly around his cock. 

“Fuck … you like that?” Potter’s voice was raspy, making Draco feel like he might crawl right out of his skin and scream if he were any more turned on. “You want me to fuck that pretty mouth of yours, Malfoy?”

Had he not heard it with his own ears, Draco would never have believed Potter could say something so filthy. He sank down again, urged by Potter’s hand, and the head of Potter’s cock tickled the back of his throat once more, making him choke. Potter hissed out an unintelligible curse under his breath. 

“Stay still,” he breathed, his tone toeing the line of request and demand, but Draco had never been so happy to oblige Potter before. He kept his throat open and let Potter cradle the back of his head, his hips starting off slow as he pushed his cock into Draco's mouth and pulled it back out again, a filthy mockery of what Draco would have given anything for Potter to be doing to his arse.

It shocked Draco endlessly to find out that Potter wasn’t, apparently, _Saint Potter_ at all when it came to matters of sex. It reminded Draco of the Potter he’d seen in the Great Hall five months ago, the one who had called the Dark Lord by his given name; the one who had left the most powerful and dangerous wizard of the modern age a dead heap on the floor. His hips sped up marginally, shoving his cock down Draco’s throat with less and less abandon the more he seemed to realize Draco could take it. Not only that, but he _wanted_ it. Being used like this by Potter, knowing he was quickly pulling him towards some invisible edge, it was like nothing Draco had ever experienced before with any of the other blokes he’d slept with.

“God, you look so fucking good like this, Malfoy,” Potter ground out between gasping breaths, nails digging harder into Draco’s head, giving him only short interludes to draw breath before he was fucking into him again, leaving Draco’s jaw aching and his lips swollen. 

For his part, Draco didn’t think he’d ever been so turned on in his life.

“Malfoy, I’m …” Potter choked out, his hips stuttering, clearly getting close. And while Draco had an inkling that Saint Potter was warning him so that Draco could pull off in time, Draco had no intention of doing anything of the sort. He wanted it. Merlin help him, he wanted it _so badly_. “ _Malfoy_ ,” he said again, more sharply this time, but Draco only sank his mouth down as far as he could, sucking hard and closing his eyes when he felt Potter’s cock start pulsing against his tongue. Those hands were back in his hair as Potter’s hips ground up against him, shooting salty come down Draco’s throat in hot spurts. Draco swallowed down all of it, _delighting_ in it, squeezing the shaft with his hand and milking him of every last drop.

When it was over, Potter fell back against the chair with an arm thrown across his face and his cock softening against his stomach. Draco wiped delicately at his lips, as if he’d been enjoying nothing more than a popsicle, and raised an eyebrow from where he still sat on the floor between Potter’s legs. After several seconds Potter removed his arm and looked down, appearing utterly bewildered by what had just happened.

“Don’t your knees hurt?” was the first he said. Draco rolled his eyes. Typical Potter. 

“Is that all you have to say, Potter? Not even a thank-you?”

Tucking himself clumsily back into his pants but not bothering to zip back up, he reached down and grabbed Draco’s hand, pulling him to his feet and standing as well. His mouth was on Draco’s in a matter of seconds, and Draco moaned into it, imagining Potter tasting himself on his tongue. 

“Thank you,” he breathed. His fingers drifted back into Draco’s hair, a caress that was desperately gentle compared to what he’d been doing a minute ago. “If I’d known you were gagging for it so badly I would’ve had you on your knees for me a long time ago.”

Potter had barely finished the sentence before Draco was shoving at his chest. But Potter was laughing, and he grabbed Draco’s hips only to pull him close again and catch his mouth in another devastatingly slow kiss.

“I’d like to return the favor at some point,” he said when he pulled back, causing Draco’s head to flood with images that made his cheeks red and his heart pound. “Whenever you feel comfortable enough.” 

“We’ll see,” Draco said quietly. Still blushing, he tentatively finished zipping Potter back up, and even saw to it that his robes were put back in order. Except for the flush on his face, nothing might have even happened. His hair looked no messier than usual. “I expect you need to get back out there. Everyone will be wondering where their guest of honour has got off to.”

“I’m not the guest of honour,” Potter frowned. His hands hadn’t left Draco’s hips, and Draco had the strangest feeling Potter was using him right now as a source of comfort. “It’s my parents they’re honoring. And everyone who died.” 

“Don’t be daft.” Not sure why he was doing it, Draco lifted a hand to brush away the fringe of Potter’s messy hair, exposing his famous lightning-bolt scar. He dragged the pad of his thumb across it, very much aware that he’d never gotten such a close look before. Aware, too, that he, like everyone else, had attached some sort of mythic importance to it. His chest expanded with an emotion he couldn't identify. “It’s you they’re honouring, Potter. You’re the one who saved us.”

Potter only shrugged and shook his head. He seemed highly put off by the subject. Something was on the tip of his tongue, Draco could feel it, but in the end he appeared to decide against saying it out loud.

“Right. Er — do you think you might want to meet up again later tonight?” There was something pleading in Potter’s eyes. He remembered what Potter had said to him a couple weeks ago in the Prefects’ bath — something about feeling lonely these days despite all his friends.

“I think I could manage that,” he said. The way Potter’s eyes lit up was worth it. 

Potter kissed him again, slow and deep, leaving Draco feeling weak in the knees and embarrassingly high.

“Great. I’ll find you around one.”

Draco raised a brow. “I know you have that bleeding Cloak, Potter, but how are you going to _find_ me?”

Potter’s smirk was absolutely infuriating.

“Don’t worry about it.”

And before Draco had time to stop him and interrogate further, Potter was squeezing his hand and heading back into the Great Hall, where hundreds of people who thought they knew him would vie for his attention. 

Draco smiled to himself and touched his lips, still burning with the taste of Potter on them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	10. Chapter 10

As an experiment, Draco chose a spot he and Potter had never used before. An unlikely spot — something that didn’t make sense, even. Somewhere Potter couldn’t just _guess_. 

It had gotten cold in the last week, icy winds gusting across Hogwarts’s sloping grounds and turning piles of leaves into tornadoes of colour. Draco had always liked autumn, especially at Hogwarts; he loved the smell of decaying leaves and baking pumpkin and hot apple cider that permeated the air no matter what part of the school one found oneself. The only thing he had never been all that fond of, however, was Halloween. Not the holiday itself — as a child he’d adored the chance for a celebration — but rather the solemnity that had always descended heavily over the Manor around that time. His first year at Hogwarts, Draco had been privately ecstatic to be away from home and all the strange vibes his mother and father had always been buzzing with until November got under way. 

Retrospectively, Draco knew that even eleven years after the fact, Halloween night had remained synonymous with the first fall of the Dark Lord in Lucius Malfoy’s eyes.

Sitting on a bench out behind greenhouse two, kept warm by a bluebell flame, Draco thought about how he now had a brand-new association with the holiday. Perhaps he’d given Potter one, too.

Potter, who kept his word and found Draco behind the greenhouse not ten minutes after he’d sat down.

 _Potter_ , whose presence alone made Draco’s cheeks flood with warmth and what was surely an obvious shade of red.

He looked about as nervous as Draco was feeling himself, hands shoved into the pockets of his denims once he’d taken off his Invisibility Cloak and — of course — ruffled out his hair in what appeared to be a completely unconscious gesture.

Draco tried very hard not to find this endearing. 

“Hey,” Potter said, grinning with half his mouth as he sat down on the other side of the bench. “That’s a bluebell flame, isn’t it? Hermione used to make those all the time in the winter, when she and Ron and I would sneak around the castle.”

“It's a standard third-year charm.”

“Hermione was conjuring them up in first year,” Potter informed him. Draco scowled. Absolutely bloody typical.

“How is it you found me, Potter?” Draco turned to him with a raised eyebrow, entirely serious about cracking this mystery wide open once and for all. “And I want a real answer. I’m beginning to think you stalk me under that Cloak twenty-four hours a day.” 

“That’s why you came out here, isn’t it?” Potter chuckled. Draco saw nothing funny about the situation. “At first I thought you might have gone mad, but then I realized you were probably just setting me up. You’re nearly as clever as Hermione sometimes.”

“Nearly?” Draco spluttered, frowning deeply. “ _Sometimes_? You know, if I were you, Potter, and I had _any_ intention at all of having my —”

Draco’s sentence was cut short by Potter’s mouth. He could feel the idiot smiling into it.

“I was only taking the piss, Malfoy,” Potter said against his lips. There was a teasing lilt to his voice that simultaneously enraged Draco and made him feel like falling to his knees between Potter’s legs all over again. “I’ll show you how I keep finding you. You have to keep it a secret, though.” 

Draco pulled back — reeling from the kiss, though he was disinclined to let this fact show on his face — and gave Potter a searching look. 

“Why? It isn’t … Dark Magic?”

Potter’s eyebrows drew together. “Of course it isn’t,” he said a tad sharply. The metaphysical distance between the two of them — a distance they’d so recently begun to bridge — was momentarily thrown into sharp relief. Dark and Light. Good and Evil. Everything Potter stood for versus everything Draco had been coerced into _trying_ to stand for and failed miserably.

In a soft voice, Draco said, “It was only a question, Potter.” 

Potter watched him for another few seconds; Draco couldn’t have begun to guess what was going on in his head. Finally, once he’d apparently come to some conclusion, he stuck a hand back inside one of his pockets and pulled out an old, ratty piece of parchment. Draco flashed back to a time when he’d seen Potter stuffing something like that away inside his robes. His eyes narrowed at it.

“What is that?”

“It’s a map,” Potter said, and he began unfolding it after tapping it with his wand and, bizarrely, muttering, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” Draco scooted closer in order to see what was written on it, only to feel baffled all over again when he saw precise strokes of ink drawing themselves in loops and turns across the page, creating shapes and words and — miraculously — little dots with a scribbled name above each one. “The Marauder’s Map, more specifically.”

“Who are they?” Draco asked once he’d found his voice, pointing to the names at the top:  _Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs_. 

 _Wormtail_.

Draco’s chest went cold. 

“Wait, I … I know that one.” His finger hovered above _Wormtail_ , not quite touching it. “The Dark Lord … that’s what he called Pettigrew.” 

Potter nodded stiltedly. “Yeah. He was … friends with my dad and Sirius and Lupin in school. Er — kind of …”

Draco had heard stories. Mostly snippets of conversation illicitly overheard, hiding out behind closed doors with his ear pressed to the wall. That had been when he was younger, mostly. When he’d been curious for curiosity’s sake. Before his childhood had been blasted to smithereens and suddenly bullying Potter was the last thing on his mind. 

Sirius Black had, of course, been his mother’s cousin. The grandson of Draco’s Great Aunt Walburga. A touchy topic. A blood traitor. Apparently Potter’s godfather, if the snippets held any credibility.

“So … what? You’re telling me your father and his mates  _made_ this?”

Potter smiled, the ambivalence melting away from his face as quickly as it had appeared there. “Well, it was probably Lupin, mostly. But I think my dad and Sirius likely were the ones who knew the most about the castle. The names came from their Animagus forms. They learned it when they were in school, so they could … help control Lupin during full moons, I guess. Prongs, that was my dad. A stag. Same as his Patronus.”

“And yours,” Draco added without thinking. Potter looked at him strangely and Draco’s blush came back. 

“That’s right. And mine.”

“So,” Draco pressed on determinedly, “how did they make it, then?”

Potter shrugged. “Haven’t the foggiest. Fred and George nicked it from Filch’s office their first year. Gave it to me our third year so I could sneak into Hogsmeade since my uncle never signed my permission slip. See?” Potter pointed out several different places on the Map which appeared to denote passageways in and out of Hogwarts that Draco had never even heard of before. Many of which Potter had surely used in order to do most of his rule-breaking. “Anyway, it tells you where everyone is, too. That’s how I’ve been finding you.”

Potter handed it over and let him look the Map over more thoroughly. He traced his finger through the Slytherin dungeons, weaved through the familiar corridors of his once-beloved school, across the Great Hall, and the kitchens, and Snape’s old dungeon office. Up to the seventh-floor corridor where a blank stretch of wall hid the Room of Hidden Things. 

If it still existed, of course.

“The Room of Requirement doesn’t show up on here,” he noted.

“No, it doesn’t. But Hermione thinks that might be because they didn’t know about it when they made the Map.”

He handed the parchment back to Potter, mind beginning to wander back to the ball that had ended just a few hours ago. The picture of Lily and James Potter above the monument to the dead. Potter, hiding beneath an Invisibility Cloak instead of soaking up the adoration everyone so desperately wanted to heap upon him. In fact, the Cloak and that Map together must have allowed Potter to become virtually unfindable, which was apparently something he valued quite a lot.

“You really _don’t_ like the attention, do you?” Draco asked, pressing his cold hands between his thighs. (It was still stranger than strange to feel his tits press together when he did this.) The flickering of the bluebell flame cast shadows on Potter’s face, making him look much older than he was, almost as if what Draco was seeing now was the man behind the mask. The person most of the Wizarding world didn’t _get_ to see, because all they wanted was Harry Potter, the Chosen One. “I’m just thinking about the ball,” he explained, “how you were hiding from everyone, probably using that Map to find me. I used to think you liked that attention. When we were younger, I mean. I thought you loved it. The fame, and all that.”

“Make it more difficult to hate me this way?” Potter teased. 

“I hate you just fine,” Draco said, smiling when Potter chuckled. “I guess I just don’t understand it entirely. I think most people would enjoy the spotlight.”

“Hermione says it’s because of the way I grew up.”

“What, with the Muggles, you mean? What’s that got to do with it?” 

Potter grinned. It was unnerving. “A lot, I think. Maybe I’ll tell you about it some time.”

“Why not now?” Draco pressed.

“Because it’s a shit topic,” Potter said. His aloofness was so obviously forced as to be cringe-worthy, but Draco let it drop. Now was apparently not the time to dig into Potter’s past — the part of it the Wizarding world knew nothing about. “And talking about the Dursleys is quite literally the last thing I want to do right now.”

“What _do_ you want to do right now, then?”

Potter seemed stumped by this question. The silence that came about quickly began to feel awkward, seeming to shine a light on the absurdity of this situation. Potter and Malfoy — whose rivalry had been ubiquitously known throughout Hogwarts since the day they’d stepped off that train into Hogsmeade station — sitting together on a lonely stone bench out behind the greenhouses, huddled close and lit up by the dancing shadows of Draco’s bluebell flame. Potter, the hero and the saviour of the Wizarding world, the darling of the media. Malfoy, the Death Eater’s son. Malfoy, the Death Eater himself. _The Last Free Death Eater_ , as the _Prophet_ had so many times referred to him lately.

Malfoy, who had had the Chosen One’s cock in his mouth just a couple hours ago.

Were they fooling themselves? he wondered for the first time. Was he, Draco, actively making the second biggest mistake of his life?

“Can I ask you something?” Potter’s voice ripped Draco almost violently out of his pessimistic musings. He turned to him owlishly, Draco’s eyes scanning Potter’s face before landing on that bright, mesmerizing green and stopping there. “Why haven’t you asked me for your wand back?” 

Completely floored by this, it actually took Draco a moment to understand what Potter was talking about. His stomach flipped when a hazy image of his old wand materialized in his mind, as well as the blurry memory of Potter wrenching it from his grasp before he’d fled the Manor.

“What?” he muttered stupidly. He swallowed, trying to find his bearings. “This is a preferable topic to your Muggles, is it, Potter?”

“You asked me about the Map and I showed it to you,” Potter said reasonably — except it wasn’t reasonable _at all_. Far from it, in fact. “It’s my turn to ask a question and have it answered. I’ve been wondering since the day we came back when you’d finally bring it up, but you haven’t.”

“Why are _you_ bringing it up?” Draco bit back defensively. He _had_ thought about it, of course. It was _his_ bloody wand, for Merlin’s fucking sake. _His_ wand that Potter had taken from him and then proceeded to use to beat the Dark Lord.

Draco shivered. 

“I’m just curious, is all. _Do_ you want it back?” 

Despite the fact that, no, Draco did _not_ want that wand back, not ever, he still felt indignity rise in his throat like bile. 

“Do I want it back?” he echoed, a sneer on his face. “Why don’t I steal _your_ wand, Potter, and then I’ll ask you the same question.” 

Potter looked entirely unfazed by Draco’s venomous tone.

“Why haven’t you asked for it, then?”

“Why were you waiting for me to _ask_?”

Potter seemed to contemplate this. Finally, he shrugged. “Wasn’t sure how to bring it up, I guess.”

“Oh, and this was _really_ tactful, Potter. Good job, waiting for the right moment and all. What, you wanted a knob job first before you gave up your leverage?” 

Draco knew right away this was the wrong thing to say. He hadn’t _really_ thought it was the case, it was just so habitual to lash out at him. But he regretted it instantly, because Potter’s face darkened and Draco could see his jaw clench. 

“You think that’s funny, do you, Malfoy?” And then Potter was standing up, and Draco felt panic begin clawing at his brain. Without giving himself time to overthink it, he got up from the bench as well and grabbed the sleeve of Potter’s jumper. Potter turned, but where Draco had gotten so used to seeing an annoyingly charming grin was now a cold, unamused line.

“I didn’t mean that, Potter,” he said softly. The words _I’m sorry_ seemed unable to make it past his tongue. “I only … I didn’t expect you to bring up my wand. I _have_ been thinking about it. I suppose I’m just not really sure what my answer is.”

Some of the anger melted away from Potter’s face, leaving something steeped in uncertainty behind.

“What makes you unsure?” he asked.

Draco rolled his eyes, though it was more at the situation than at Potter. “You used it to kill the bloody Dark Lord, didn’t you? Is it so hard to understand why I might be ambivalent?”

Potter was quiet. Draco would have given anything to know what he was thinking about.

“I didn’t _kill_ Voldemort with your wand,” he said slowly. The name made Draco flinch. It would never cease to amaze him, the way Potter bandied that word about.

“I don’t know _what_ you did, Potter,” Draco admitted. He was decently sure the rest of the Wizarding world was on the same page, despite the baffling speech Potter had given at the time. Plenty of people had begun _analyzing_ that speech, in fact — what little of it anybody remembered, anyway. “I just know that when he hit the floor of the Great Hall, you were holding my wand.”

Potter let out a deep sigh, eyeing Draco wearily. He seemed suddenly to drain of energy. Or perhaps he was simply letting go of the fight, something Draco would have thought impossible. For himself _or_ Potter.

“This— er — has to do with what you said last week. Doesn’t it?”

“What did I say last week?” Draco ventured carefully.

“About … not deserving forgiveness.”

Draco bristled. If the Muggles were Potter’s boundary, then this was his.

“No, it doesn’t. And I’m not discussing this,” Draco said shortly. To his surprise, Potter nodded.

“That’s fine. I just wanna say something, though. And then we can drop it. We can drop the whole conversation. I didn’t mean for this to turn into a rehash of the past.”

“What is it?” Draco said, tone clipped. It hid the way his heart was thundering in his chest. When Potter took a step closer, his rapid pulse only increased. 

“I _like_ you, Malfoy.” Potter’s voice was quiet but determined, utterly devoid of shame. “I mean … kind of a lot, if I’m being honest.” Draco, who felt a little like he’d been hit by a _Petrificus Totalus_ , stayed frozen. Potter licked his lips, appearing to choose his words carefully. “I know that there’s, like, a whole mountain range of shit between us that should make this impossible, and if not impossible, then at least _really_ difficult, but I just want you to know that for me, the past is exactly that: the _past_. And I don’t just mean when you dressed up like a bloody Dementor to try and get me to fall off my broom.”

Draco looked away, cheeks flushed, but his gaze found Potter again when a hand was suddenly gently gripping his arm — his _left_ arm, Potter’s fingers brushing against the material of his cloak that hid the Dark Mark underneath. He wanted to yank his arm away, and yet something held him back from actually doing it.

“I mean _this_ ,” Potter said even more softly. “The fact that you don’t feel you deserve it makes me sure that you do. Did you know that remorse can heal a soul?” 

Now he did pull away. He didn’t know whether Potter was asking a rhetorical question, and anyway, he was hardly focused on the second part of that impromptu speech Potter had given. The first part was still ringing in his head and making him feel nauseous. After several long moments where Potter watched him with his eyebrows knitted in the middle of his forehead, arm back at his side, Draco forced out the words he desperately wished weren’t true.

“You don’t like me, Potter. I know that you think you do, and I think Granger even seems to believe it, but you don’t. What you like is this _version_ of me. I’m not —”

“I know you’re not a bloody woman, Malfoy,” Potter interjected. “I know that. I get it. Christ, do you think I could forget who you are?” 

“You certainly seem to have,” Draco bit back. Potter looked genuinely bewildered. Not to mention irritated. 

“Well I haven’t. And you know, I’d bloody well appreciate it if you’d extend me the courtesy of being allowed to make my own sodding judgments. I mean, yeah, I think you look bang tidy in this body, but that’s got fuck all to do with the way I feel about you.”

Draco’s stomach plummeted. The things coming out of Potter’s mouth were so surreal they might have been the stuff of dreams.  

“You feel like you enjoyed fucking my mouth, Potter,” he said stiffly. “Don’t make it out to be more than it is.”

Potter stepped closer again, this time until he was able to slide his hands onto Draco’s waist, tugging him closer. Potter’s unique scent made Draco’s gut twist painfully. 

“Why are you so determined to believe that’s all this is?” he questioned softly. And what right did he have, really? Sounding so sickeningly sincere, so utterly laid out for Draco’s perusal? It was something Draco himself had never been any good at — it was perhaps the reason he’d excelled in Occlumency. Shutting down his emotions was second nature. Potter was, of course, just the opposite. He seemed not to be afraid of emotional pain, and that fact never failed to leave Draco feeling completely out of his element.  

“Because I’m not stupid enough to let myself fall for this … for _you_ ,” Draco said. His voice was thick with barely-suppressed emotion, cheeks on fire. “Not when I know how completely ephemeral this is.”

Potter sighed through his nose. “It isn’t, Malfoy. But clearly I can’t make you believe me, and that’s fine. I just wanted you to know that I do forgive you, and I _do_ like you a whole bloody lot." 

Draco lifted both hands and placed them on either side of Potter’s stupid, handsome face, pulling him down into a kiss that was as much frustration as it was a devastating need to taste him. Potter’s hands tightened on his hips, his tongue sweeping the inside of Draco’s mouth in a way that was becoming frighteningly familiar. 

“Can we just drop it?” he mumbled against Potter’s mouth. His thumb swept across Potter’s cheekbone, palm covering the scratchy surface of his jaw. “I’m sick of talking about this.” 

Potter’s eyes rolled skyward, but a grin had at last returned to his face. 

“Fine. Can we relocate inside, though? It’s bloody cold out here, Malfoy.”

“That we can do,” he conceded, dropping his hands from Potter’s face and privately reveling in the fact that Potter’s hands stayed firmly planted on his waist. “Where do you want to go?" 

“I dunno,” his gaze moved to the hulking shape of the castle, green eyes etching its sheer enormity. “I miss sneaking around. Properly, I mean.”

“You _mean_ going places you weren’t supposed to go,” Draco drawled, amused endlessly by Potter’s penchant for causing trouble. Something which had, until very recently, burned Draco’s nerves. “Solving mysteries. Finding ancient chambers buried underneath the school for literally a thousand years.”

Potter’s laughter made his eyes sparkle. “Yeah, exactly. You don’t think there’s a second Chamber of Secrets we could sniff out, do you?”

“Unlikely,” Draco intoned, eyebrow raised. A thought, however, came unbidden into his mind. He hesitated before saying it out loud. “We could go to the real one, though.”

Potter’s eyes immediately came back to Draco’s face. His expression was quizzical, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. 

“What did you say?” 

“I said we could go to the Chamber of Secrets,” Draco repeated. He knew what an absurd request it was, and yet he found that he meant it. Despite the way his chest clenched with fear just at the thought of the place where Potter had, according to his father, slain a bloody Basilisk, Draco’s desire to see such an ancient Slytherin myth with his own eyes was tempting in a way perhaps only a pure-blooded Slytherin would understand. “If you can still find it, that is.” 

“Are you serious?” Potter said after a moment where he appeared to be studying Draco’s face. “It’s not a _neat_ place, Malfoy. It’s a sick, twisted underground chamber that housed a monster for about ten centuries.” 

“So you _can’t_ find it again,” Draco pushed, egging Potter on intentionally. It had, after all, been one of his greatest talents for seven years. 

“Finding it isn’t the problem,” Potter snapped, and his hands finally fell from Draco’s waist. Draco thrilled to know that he could still manipulate him so easily. “The problem is that I’m not sure it’s a good idea. And I don’t even know if I can speak Parseltongue anymore, anyhow.” 

“Why wouldn’t you be able to speak it anymore? You’re a Parselmouth.”

Potter looked suddenly uncomfortable. “That’s one of those stories for another day. The point is, I doubt that I can. And you need to speak Parseltongue to get in.”

“Well if it’s so unlikely, what’s the harm in trying?” Draco raised a challenging eyebrow. “We probably won’t get in anyway. Just show me where the entrance is.” He paused, then added, " _Scared_ , Potter?" 

This seemed to do the trick. Instead of arguing further, Potter moved to grab his Cloak and pulled the Map out of his pocket. After throwing the Cloak over himself, he lifted it up and looked at Draco expectantly. 

“Get under,” he said, a note of irritation in his voice. And Draco did, glad for the first time that he was shorter than he used to be, for the Cloak barely covered them both. Potter had to crouch so that it wouldn’t kick up around their feet. 

Potter held the Map out in front of them as they made their way back inside the castle, and then up to the second floor, where Draco was absolutely thrown when they stopped outside Myrtle’s bathroom.

“You can’t be serious,” he said when Potter pulled off the Cloak and walked inside, Draco following behind, baffled. “The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is in _here_?” 

Myrtle didn’t seem to be present, and for that Draco was eternally grateful. 

He followed Potter to a sink that had a minuscule snake etched into the marble by the tap. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“Like I said,” Potter spoke, voice low, uncertain. His eyes seemed resolutely fixed on the small carving. “I have no idea if I can still open it up.” 

There were several minutes of silence. Potter seemed to be working something out in his head, but when he finally opened his mouth, it was a distinct hissing sound that came out. Draco, absurdly, felt his stomach pool with the heat of arousal even as his head flooded with trepidation and cold fear. It was exactly as unnerving as it had been hearing Potter do that in their second year. Worse now, even, because it brought back terrifying memories of the Manor’s occupation during the war.

He watched, enthralled, as the sink dropped out of sight and left in its wake a hole that opened up on a dark tunnel leading Merlin knew where. Looking over, Draco saw a complicated expression on Potter’s face. His cheeks had filled with colour.

“You went down _there_ when you were twelve years old?” he couldn’t resist asking, astounded against his will by the amount of sheer bravery — or perhaps stupidity — it would have taken to blindly jump into a dark tunnel whose bottom couldn’t be made out. 

“I had to,” Potter shrugged. “Voldemort had possessed Ginny and taken her down there. I wasn’t going to let her die.”

Draco shifted uncomfortably where he stood, taken aback not for the first time by Potter and everything he stood for. Everything he _was_.

“We don’t have to go down there, Malfoy. You’ve seen the entrance. Can that be enough?” 

“No,” Draco said immediately. Some part of him certainly would have liked to agree and get out of there. Another part of him, however, was so desperately curious that it overwhelmed the fear. That, and he wasn’t about to back down in front of Potter. Besides, there was no Dark Lord anymore, right? And the Basilisk, thanks to Potter, was dead. “I want to see it. How do we get down?” 

“Last time I jumped,” Potter said simply. “There’re bones at the bottom from what I remember. Padded the fall a bit.”

“ _Bones_?”

“Animal bones. Mostly.” 

“Mostly?” Draco parroted, feeling sick. “Merlin’s tits, Potter.”

“It’s like I said, Malfoy. This isn’t some museum exhibit. I nearly died down there.”

“Yes, well. Thanks to you, all the monsters are gone, aren’t they?”

Potter considered him. After a moment, he took out his wand and muttered, “ _Accio Moonraker_.”

“We’re going to fly?” Draco fairly gasped, aware of the unsteady quality to his voice. “I thought you said you jumped.”

“I did. But if _we_ jumped, I don’t know how we’d get back out. Fawkes saved us that time.”

“Who the hell is Fawkes?" 

“Dumbledore’s phoenix.”

Potter’s broom flew neatly into the bathroom at that moment, directly into his hands.

“Dumbledore’s _phoenix_ saved you?” Draco said, disbelief colouring his voice. “But … but _why_?”

Potter glanced at him again. “Do you wanna go down there or not?”

Gritting his teeth, Draco nodded, gesturing at the broom in Potter’s hand. His burning desire to see the chamber won out over his reluctance to get on a broom.

Potter climbed onto it, and after heaving a deep breath, Draco got on behind him. He squeezed his eyes shut, grateful Potter couldn’t see it. He pushed away the deluge of memories that tried to overwhelm him.

“Good?” Potter questioned. Instead of answering verbally, Draco wound his arms around Potter’s waist, his grip tight. To his immense surprise, he felt Potter’s warm hand rest briefly over his own, but before he had time to analyze this, they were lifting off the floor and Potter was drifting them carefully down into the blackness of the tunnel. 

It lasted about five minutes, but it felt like much longer. They were completely enveloped in darkness for several of those minutes, Draco’s eyes still tightly shut, and when they finally reached the bottom, he saw that Potter hadn’t been lying: there were _thousands_ of bones.

“Merlin,” Draco breathed.

“Up there is where Lockhart tried to hex us and it rebounded on him.” Potter was pointing ahead of them, where Draco could see what had once presumably been a wall of boulders which had been blasted through. “Looks like Ron and Hermione got rid of them when they came down here.”

Draco decided not to ask what Granger and Weasley had been doing down here by themselves.

“Well, come on.” Potter led him through the cramped tunnel with a _Lumos_ lighting their way, although it wasn’t nearly as dark as the tunnel coming down had been. It was long and damp, smelled of ancient rot, and was, frankly, terrifying. Here and there Draco spotted snakeskin which must have been shed by the Basilisk when it was still alive. His arms developed perpetual goosebumps.

Eventually they came to an intricate door, and once again Potter spoke Parseltongue to open it up. Draco got the uneasy feeling that what they’d come to see was just beyond, and his heart jumped.

The Chamber was a hundred, nay, a _thousand_ times bigger than Draco had imagined. All his breath seemed to leave his body in one shuddering gust of air. An enormous statue of Salazar Slytherin stood at the very end, mouth horrifically agape, surrounded by pillars entwined with carved wood.

In the middle, like something out of a nightmare, was a colossal skeleton. 

“Is that …?” Draco breathed, looking to Potter for confirmation of what he’d already guessed. 

“The Basilisk, yeah.” Potter’s eyes stayed glued to it, and Draco got the feeling he hadn’t seen it since he’d killed it when he was twelve. “Right where I left it.” It was meant to sound like a joke, but Draco had never heard anything less amusing in his life. Following some strange impulse that he decided not to ignore, he reached out and grabbed Potter’s hand, squeezing. Potter squeezed back.

“How did you kill it?”

“Fawkes,” Potter said again, and finally he looked over at Draco. His face was pale. “Brought me the Sorting Hat and blinded the snake with his talons. The Sword of Gryffindor was inside the Hat. I’m — er — not sure anymore how I managed it, everything about the fight itself is blurry, but _somehow_ I stabbed the sword through its head. One of its fangs got me in the arm.” 

Draco couldn’t help but gape. “Basilisk venom is … it’s one of the most dangerous poisons in the world, Potter! Nobody could have survived that. The only cure is …” He trailed off as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together. “The phoenix,” he said, and Potter nodded, a small smile on his face. “Its tears. They healed you.”

“Fawkes saved my life more than a few times that night.”

 A sick feeling in his stomach was steadily becoming more and more difficult for Draco to ignore.

“Is it true, what my father said?” Draco asked hesitantly. “The Dark Lord … did you see him down here?” 

Potter twined their fingers together, his thumb rubbing lightly across the back of Draco's hand. He couldn’t even be sure if Potter was conscious of doing it. The look on his face was tight, like he was sorting through a million different emotions at once, and Draco supposed that was probably the case. A pang of guilt struck him, and suddenly he felt selfish for making Potter come down here. 

“Yes and no,” Potter said finally. Draco’s stomach dropped — some part of him had never believed it. _Couldn’t_ believe it. It was too horrible to be true. “It wasn’t Voldemort as you knew him. Do you … know what a Horcrux is, by any chance?”

“No,” Draco said slowly, a pit of fear materializing in his stomach. He’d never heard the word, and yet the sound of it gave him the chills. 

“When you kill someone,” Potter explained, “your soul rips apart. A Horcrux is when you put a piece of your soul that’s split off into an object, to make you immortal, you know? Voldemort made six of them. Well, and, er — a seventh one, too, by accident. One of them was a diary, I guess he left it with your dad before he disappeared the first time. Your dad — er — he didn't know what it was, he just knew it had something to do with the Chamber of Secrets, is my guess. He stuck it in with Ginny’s books when we saw you at Flourish and Blotts, do you remember?” Jaw clenched, skin crawling, Draco merely nodded. He’d always known the Dark Lord was psychotic, but this… “Right, well … a piece of his soul was in it. It possessed Ginny, she brought it down here, I came after her. It was using her for … I don’t know, her life force, or something. What I saw, what I spoke to, it was kind of like a memory. He was sixteen. Using her as bait to get to me and to bring himself back to life.”

The thought of a sixteen-year-old version of the madman who’d lived in his family home for a year made Draco feel sick to his stomach. How, he wondered vaguely, had Potter survived? Not just physically, but _mentally_. How could _anyone_ survive witnessing something like that? 

Feeling utterly ridiculous but unable to help himself, he let go of Potter’s hand in favour of lifting his arms around Potter’s neck instead, standing on the balls of his feet to reach, and not even caring. He buried his face there, inhaling the smell of him and wondering when it had become comforting. After a moment of what was probably shocked hesitation, Potter dropped the broom and wound his arms around Draco’s waist tightly, the intimacy of it enough to make Draco feel like exploding with _feeling_. Feelings that he willfully and deliberately suppressed by pulling away after only a few seconds, before the threat of tears he felt making his throat tight decided to transform into _actual_ tears.  

“Thank you,” Potter said, and his voice sounded suspiciously hoarse. Draco looked away, not wanting to see the emotions on Potter’s face that would be plain as day and impossible to ignore. 

“We should go.” Draco bent and picked up the broom from the stone floor, feeling the weight of it, the texture of it, before handing it to Potter. “I … thank you for bringing me down here. It's my House's history."

“You’re welcome,” Potter nodded. He said nothing else about it.

After a last look around, the two of them walked back to the tunnel that would lead them out (Potter grabbed his hand halfway back, and Draco didn't stop him), and Potter flew them back up into Myrtle’s bathroom. Potter was silent the whole time. The sink ground back into place after them, and it left a ringing silence when it stopped.

“You know, Malfoy,” Potter turned to him, a thoughtful look on his face, “I know earlier I wouldn’t talk about the Dursleys, like I said, it’s a shit topic. A lot of topics for me are pretty much shit. But I _will_ talk to you about them, you know, when I'm more prepared for it. Down there just now, I realized that … well, we don’t really know each other, do we? What you know about me, it’s what you heard from your dad, and the people you were always around. From the media. From _Voldemort_.” His eyes were round and so _earnest_ , so hopeful, so goddamned sincere. And even more than that, they were haunted. Draco wanted to look away, but couldn’t. “You asked before if I like the attention I get, and I didn’t _really_ give you an answer. So my answer is no. I hate it. I _hate_ that the world thinks they know me. I hate when they pretend to understand, to be _grateful_ , when they don’t have a clue. When they were perfectly happy to treat me like a raving lunatic a few years ago, before they were ready to believe me about Voldemort.” His hand lifted to Draco’s cheek, and Draco, for his part, still couldn’t tear his eyes away from Potter’s. He felt short of breath. “Some of it's hard to talk about, but I _want_ you to know me, Malfoy. The real me, not Harry Potter. And … I want to get to know you, too. As, you know, Draco.”

His name on Potter’s lips was exquisite. 

For a reason he didn’t feel like exploring, he thought of their first train ride to Hogwarts. Potter’s rejection of Draco’s friendship, the sting of which, were he honest with himself, Draco knew had never entirely gone away. 

“Okay,” he said stiffly. There were a million reasons this was a bad idea, namely because when he’d told Potter before that he didn’t want to risk falling for him, he’d meant it. Potter, Draco was beginning to realize, would have been far too easy to become addicted to. Yet the child inside of him — and maybe something else, as well — couldn’t find it within himself to say no. “You know, I … I got a private room, because of the hex. We could go there, if you want.”

A myriad of things passed across Potter’s face, but before he answered, he looked down at the old, battered-looking watch he’d been wearing since the start of term. 

“It’s already half past two,” he said, though he sounded tentative, like he was checking Draco knew what time it was rather than implying it was too late.

“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” Draco raised an eyebrow, ignoring the spots of colour he knew Potter would be able to see on his face. Truthfully, he didn’t know _what_ he was doing. Just that he still desperately wanted Potter’s company. “Unless you’re tired.”

“No, just … surprised.” He pulled his Invisibility Cloak back out and wrapped it around his shoulders, making most of his body disappear. “You’re sure?”

Draco rolled his eyes, but a smile had crept onto his face. Merlin help him. 

“Positive,” he said, and climbed under the Cloak next to Potter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	11. Chapter 11

Malfoy’s room was not much different than the regular dorms. It was a bit smaller and it only had one bed, but other than that, the only real difference between it and the eighth-year Gryffindor dormitory was the aesthetic. The Slytherins were, of course, beneath the school in the dungeons, making it so one could see the depths of the Black Lake through the windows rather than the Hogwarts grounds, like in Gryffindor Tower. It seemed … appropriate, somehow. Malfoy’s room was dim even with the lamps burning, his bed hung with deep green curtains that were in a strange way much less warm and hospitable than Harry’s own scarlet ones. It reminded him forcefully of a more dressed-down version of the rooms at Grimmauld Place, Regulus’s in particular. Snakes were carved into the wooden frame of the bed, making Harry wonder whether _all_ the beds in Slytherin were like that.

It was tidy in a way that Harry’s dorm had never been — wouldn’t have been even if he’d been living alone, he supposed. Even the contents of Malfoy's open trunk were tidy. With the door shut behind them, he pulled off the Cloak and set it aside on an arm chair near the bed, the cushions of which were the same shade of green as the bed’s velvet curtains.

“This must be nice,” he said, eyes moving from one piece of furniture to the next, smiling to himself each time he saw something that spoke to Malfoy’s personality. Sheets of parchment were on the little desk, but they weren’t haphazard — a neat pile of them sat off to one side while one remained in the middle, half-covered with writing, a quill set down on top of it like Malfoy had stopped before he’d finished. A bottle of green ink sat nearby. “I mean — having your own room.”

“You can have one too, Potter. All you have to do is grow a pair of tits and they’ll move you into one overnight.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but it wasn’t without a pleased grin. It was the first time he’d heard Malfoy make any sort of joke about the situation that wasn’t dark or scathing — self-deprecating, yes, but it wasn’t as angry as it might have been even a few days ago.

He watched in a way that was probably shameless as Malfoy removed his cloak and draped it neatly over the desk chair, revealing his shimmering green dress robes from earlier in the night. Apparently, he’d never changed out of them.

“Do you mind?” Malfoy drawled when he caught Harry staring. There were two identical spots of color high up on Malfoy’s aristocratic cheekbones. Harry could have shoved him up against a wall and snogged the life out of him without any problem at all. “Turn around a minute. If I have to wear these robes another _second_ I’ll go mad.”

Harry complied, and when he was allowed to look again Malfoy was dressed in a familiar pair of shorts and a lilac-colored tee. The perky shape of his breasts underneath was utterly tantalizing and nearly impossible not to glance at, yet Harry managed, somehow. However, based on the deepening of the color on Malfoy’s face, he had an inkling as to where Harry’s thoughts lay.

“You’re completely perverted, Potter. I genuinely never would have guessed.”

Harry broke into laughter, too amused to be embarrassed at having been called out.

“It isn’t as if you _aren’t_ a pervert, Malfoy,” Harry reminded him, coming closer to the bed and leaning against one of the posts, grinning at Malfoy where he’d sat down on the edge. “If you think I’ve forgotten how eager you were to get your hands under my robes, I’m afraid you’re sorely mistaken.”

Malfoy glowered, bristling like a cactus, only the effect was somewhat ruined by his state of dress and the fact that he looked positively, delectably ruffled. He turned his body further towards Harry, one slim leg crossing over the other at the knee. Perhaps he thought this was a good way to close himself off, but all it did was expose Harry to an enormous amount of soft, pale skin on the underside of his thigh. Harry had to consciously keep his eyes from wandering.

“So, tell me, then, Potter. Besides a secret fetish for Slytherin arse, what is it you’d like me to know about you?”

Harry grinned predatorily, amused to see the way Malfoy’s careful expression faltered for a moment. He moved to sit down beside him, and Malfoy reluctantly slid over to make room, uncrossing his legs and, after a moment, pulling them up Indian-style. He was somehow straight-backed and composed even with a palpably tentative energy coming off of him.

“I hate to break it to you, Malfoy, but I don’t have any secret fetishes for Slytherin arse. Mostly it’s just yours.”

Malfoy gaped and Harry threw back his head and laughed. There was really nothing in the world as exhilarating as taking the piss out of Draco Malfoy. 

“Cretin,” Malfoy muttered, but when Harry took his chin and planted a firm kiss on his lips, he smiled. It happened apparently against his will, because he rolled his eyes once again. “Are you going to tell me something worthwhile or _not_ , Potter?”

“I was nearly sorted into Slytherin,” Harry said abruptly, having been the first thing to pop into his mind that wasn’t a dark or depressing matter.

“Bollocks, you were,” Malfoy said, looking both deeply offended and reluctantly amused. “I don’t buy it for a second. Prince Potter, Saint Potter, Perfect fucking Potter, embodiment of _everything_ Gryffindor — give me a break. If you were nearly sorted into Slytherin then I’m a Hufflepuff. And I am  _not_ a Hufflepuff, Potter.”

“Right hand to god, Malfoy, the Hat tried to put me in Slytherin until I begged it not to,” he said, impossibly satisfied by the look on Malfoy’s face. “Said something about — I dunno — a thirst to prove myself.”

“You’re making that up!”

“I’m not,” Harry laughed, shaking his head. “But Hagrid had told me about how Voldemort was in Slytherin, and how Slytherin produced the most Dark witches and wizards, and I — well, I’d just dealt with _you_ , hadn’t I? And you were raving about Slytherin.”

“This is utterly preposterous,” Malfoy declared, holding a hand up as if to stop Harry from saying anything further. “You mean to tell me that if you hadn’t heard all that beforehand, if you hadn’t asked it _not_ to, you would have been in _Slytherin_? That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard in my life, Potter, and I assure you, I have heard some shockingly stupid things out of Greg’s mouth.”

“I don’t think it would have,” Harry told him, still grinning. “I think it was … teasing me, sort of. Because it knew I was already opposed to it. The Sword of Gryffindor came to me when I needed it. It wouldn’t have shown up for anybody who wasn’t a true Gryffindor … that’s what Dumbledore said, anyway.”

Malfoy looked thoughtful, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, like he was cold. 

“It bothers you … doesn’t it? That the Hat thought about placing you in Slytherin?” 

“Used to,” Harry admitted. Something unreadable passed across Malfoy’s face. “Especially second year, when I found out it's mostly been Dark wizards who can talk to snakes. But I’ve learned that the House you _want_ to be in, that you feel connected to, that’s the House where you belong. Dumbledore told me it's the choices we make, not our abilities. And also,” he added, nudging Malfoy lightly with his elbow, “Slytherins aren’t all that bad once you get past all the thorns.” 

Malfoy’s eyes rolled. “They’re not thorns, Potter. It’s called cunning and self-preservational instincts. Something none of the other Houses seem to have a clue about.”

“I think my self-preservation instinct is pretty keen, actually,” Harry said, lifting an eyebrow. Malfoy colored. 

“You have the self-preservation instincts of an enraged Erumpent, Potter. You’re not cunning, you’re powerful. There’s a significant difference. You’re able to blunder your way _out_ of the terrible situations your lack of subtlety or forethought gets you _into_.” 

“Now, correct me if I’m wrong,” Harry said slowly, a wicked grin growing on his lips that made Malfoy frown belligerently, “but you did just call me _powerful_ , didn’t you? That’s by far the closest you’ve ever come to complimenting me.” 

“ _Potter_ ,” Malfoy drawled, though his tone in no way covered up for the fact that his face was pink, “your Gryffindorian lack of subtlety has once again led you astray of the point; that was _hardly_ a compliment. In fact, it was an _insult_.” 

“Well, that’s good to hear, because one more comment like that and I’d have to check if you weren’t Professor Boothby Polyjuiced to _look_ like you.”

Malfoy made an impatient noise and wrinkled his nose distastefully. “That man …”

“I know,” Harry nodded, feeling that Malfoy’s tone couldn’t have summed up Harry’s own feelings more accurately. “A nightmare, he is. Can’t get through a lesson without bringing me into it. It’s like Lockhart all over again. I keep having to tell him I don't know what the bloody hell I'm doing.” He expected Malfoy to sneer, or at least tease him, to bring up Harry's rant from not an hour ago about his loathing for that sort of attention. To his surprise, however, Malfoy was looking at him contemplatively. “What?” he asked, a little self-conscious.

After a moment’s hesitation, Malfoy said slowly, “You really _don’t_ think you’re anything all that special, do you?”

Harry opened his mouth to answer, only to close it again when he realized he didn’t have one.

“What?” he said instead.

“I’m just … beginning to realize how wrong I’ve been about you all these years,” Malfoy said. Harry’s eyes widened. “Let me put this into perspective for you, Potter, from a Slytherin point of view. If you destroy the most powerful and dangerous thing in the world, what does that leave?”

Harry, baffled, shook his head.

“It leaves _you_ , Potter,” Malfoy said, sounding exasperated. “If you destroy the most dangerous thing in the world, that just leaves _you_.”

Privately, Harry thought this was pushing it a little bit too far. It was true that Voldemort had been one of the most dangerous threats to the world (magical _and_ Muggle) until Harry had defeated him, but that hardly meant Harry was some sort of superhuman. In his mind, nearly everything he’d done had been a combination of help from his friends, massive amounts of luck, and a whole lot of determination. Not to mention private tutelage from Dumbledore. Yet there was a gleam in Malfoy’s eyes that reminded Harry of the way he’d looked the other night during the ball, and so rather than correcting him, Harry decided teasing him would be much more rewarding.

“That kind of turns you on, doesn’t it, Malfoy?” he baited, grin crooked and provocative. The color on Malfoy’s cheeks doubled. Harry thought he’d never seen anything so endearing. “How very typically Slytherin of you, to be turned on by the idea of power. Never thought you’d like someone _else_ having the power, though.” A hand landing on one of Malfoy’s bent knees, Harry leaned forward slowly, pressing his lips to Malfoy’s with a deliberate chasteness. He was satisfied to hear Malfoy take in a shaky breath. “God … it really _does_ turn you on, doesn’t it?” 

“Are you going to sit there and marvel over your discovery or are you going to _do_ something about it, Potter?”

As far as Harry was concerned, that was a handwritten invitation.

He pushed Malfoy gently back onto the bed and crawled half on top of him, connecting their lips at once and dropping a hand to Malfoy’s small waist. Two delicate hands cupped Harry’s face, holding him close as he worked his tongue into Malfoy’s mouth, and it was the shaky desperation he felt in that touch that drove Harry absolutely wild. Nails scratched lightly along his skin, and when he lowered himself further, he felt the evidence of Malfoy’s tits pressing into his chest. Beneath him, Malfoy let out a rasping breath against Harry’s mouth.

“Potter, I —” 

“I’m not going to touch you anywhere you don’t wanna be touched,” Harry assured him, squeezing his hip and touching a kiss to the corner of Malfoy’s mouth.

“No,” Malfoy shook his head, lips pink and just a little bit swollen, grey eyes alive with arousal. Harry was utterly taken aback by how pretty the face staring up at him was. It was not, he mused, the same way that Ginny was pretty, either. Ginny _was_ pretty, of course, but so much of that came from how fiercely strong she was; everything about her radiated life and passion and fire. It had pulled Harry in the moment he’d noticed it in sixth year. But Malfoy — he was like something out of a very old picture one might find hanging on the walls of old Wizarding homes. High cheekbones, alabaster skin, and hair so light it might have been a halo circling his head. The fact that there was a Dark Mark on his arm was a devastating contrast to his outwardly angelic appearance, and something about that made Harry’s blood roar with lust.

 “I _want_ you to touch me,” Malfoy’s voice brought Harry back, eyes finding Malfoy’s grey ones again and dipping his eyebrows quizzically. “Just … slow. And above the waist.” 

“You’re sure?” Harry asked, even as the hand that had been on Malfoy’s hip rose an inch or two, fingers brushing beneath that tantalizing lilac t-shirt. Malfoy’s breath shuddered. “We don’t _have_ to do this —” 

“I _want_ this, Potter,” Malfoy cut him off defiantly, though some of the effect was ruined by the flush on his cheeks and the glimmer in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re going to stop being bull-headed _now_.”

Tongue in his cheek, Harry let his hand drift under the shirt entirely, the callused pads of his fingers scratching lightly across Malfoy’s smooth stomach, loving the way he could feel the skin twitching beneath his touch. Malfoy appeared to be as ambivalent as he was turned on, the evidence of which could be seen in the way his pupils had begun dilating the closer Harry got to his bra. With their eyes locked, Harry moved his hand to cup one small breast, feeling a hard nipple underneath the thin material poking into his palm. Malfoy started to let out a breathy moan but it was muffled by Harry’s mouth. Harry, for his part, was already half-hard inside his denims.

“Can I take your shirt off?” he mumbled against Malfoy’s lips, his hand squeezing gently and eliciting another breathy whimper.

“Only if you take yours off, too,” he said, and Harry was delighted to see a little smirk on his face.

“Deal.” 

Harry sat up on his knees, aware of the way Malfoy lifted himself onto his elbows to watch as Harry pulled his shirt off over his head. Those grey eyes were everywhere, he could practically feel them on his skin like a physical touch, and it made his blood boil with desire. When he’d thrown it off the bed, he carefully helped Malfoy out of his own shirt. His eyes raked over Malfoy’s exposed chest, wishing more than anything that sodding bra wasn’t in the way.

Leaning back over him, Harry whispered “You’re beautiful” like a secret into Malfoy’s ear, loving the way Malfoy keened underneath him. He was smiling as he buried his face in Malfoy’s neck, sucking lightly at the skin, down to his pale shoulder, a little bony and so much smaller than it had once been. Malfoy’s hands were on his back, nails digging in very slightly each time he felt Harry’s teeth.

One of Harry’s hands found its way back to Malfoy’s breast, but this time — lips moving over the hollow of Malfoy’s throat — he pulled the cup down and let his fingers brush across soft skin, groaning against Malfoy’s neck when he felt his nipple. Malfoy wasn’t stopping him, so Harry lifted his head and looked down, swallowing hard at the sight. The juxtaposition of this Malfoy — so utterly debauched — against the prim and proper Malfoy he’d known for so long was enough to make Harry laugh with delight.

Malfoy immediately colored furiously, but before he could move to start covering himself up Harry took hold of both his wrists, anticipating what Malfoy had surely thought his laughter was about.

“I’m not laughing at you,” he said gently, and tangled their fingers together, lifting them slowly above Malfoy’s head to press them against the pillows. “I was just … startled by how much I like you.”

“ _Potter_ ,” Malfoy drawled, but the pink on his cheeks remained and Harry even thought he saw a smile somewhere in there. “If you want me to vomit before we accomplish anything here then you’re on the right track.”

A burning warmth made Harry’s insides feel fuzzy and he laughed again. He kissed Malfoy on the mouth, then on the cheek, and then trailed a line of them down to his chest, where he slowed down significantly as his lips moved over the supple skin where his breast began. Malfoy heaved a deep breath, squeezing the hand Harry was still holding. Heart pounding out a tattoo against his ribs, Harry finally moved his mouth over Malfoy’s small pink nipple and sucked lightly. Malfoy’s chest arched and a gasping sound left his lips. Encouraged, Harry worked it over with his lips and his tongue. At the same time, he snaked both his hands beneath Malfoy’s arched torso and — thanking Merlin for the amount of times he and Ginny had indulged in an impromptu hookup, forcing Harry to learn how to fumble open a bra clasp in a hurry — undid Malfoy’s silky brassiere. 

Malfoy let Harry slip it off his arms and toss it aside with their shirts. Harry moved between his legs and, unable to stay away a second longer, captured Malfoy in another deep kiss. He groaned when he felt Malfoy’s tits and the hard bumps of his nipples against his own bare chest. His hands fell to Malfoy’s waist, pressing him into the bed.

“You’re a bloody animal, Potter,” Malfoy breathed, only the barest hint of his usual snark left. In response, Harry ground his hips down, and when his cock rubbed up against the heat of Malfoy’s pussy under his shorts, Harry let out a choked noise and balled his fists in the sheets. 

“Shit, Malfoy,” he gasped, panting against the pale, damp skin of his neck. “I’m sorry, I —”

“Do it again,” Malfoy rasped. His fingers were twisted up in Harry’s hair and he looked frantic. Conflicted but frenzied. “Please, Potter, it … it feels so good, I haven’t —” he broke off, like he was fighting himself against the words he was saying, “— I haven’t gotten off in _months_ —”

Harry gaped. He wasn’t sure, in all honesty, which part to be the most shocked by. The realization that _of course_ Malfoy hadn’t gotten off at least since he’d been hexed, or that he was now begging Harry to help him do just that.

“Wait, Malfoy,” Harry said, suddenly remembering the incident in class just a few days ago, “aren’t you on your …”

“Yes,” Malfoy said tightly. “Well … sort of … it’s slowed down at the moment. I’m, er — not wearing one of those awful cotton things right now… Pomfrey says it’ll be irregular for a while. I don’t want you to _touch_ me anyway, Potter. Just … do what you were doing before … please …”

After a moment of deliberation where he studied Malfoy’s face, Harry finally unbuttoned his denims to give his aching cock a little more room, and when he ground against Malfoy again, it was without that thick barrier between them. His eyes fell closed at the heat and the friction, lips back at Malfoy’s neck. Malfoy’s nails were ten tiny pricks of pain in his back as Harry thrust up against him, his stiff cock rubbing over Malfoy’s shorts in long, dragging movements that pulled mewling noises out of the blond beneath him.

“Fuck,” Harry groaned into his ear, hips stuttering as his cock started throbbing painfully. He could feel a distinct dampness along with the heat now. His hands moved from the sheets to Malfoy’s thighs, pressing them down unthinkingly to give himself better leverage to grind against him. Malfoy bent rather easily, and this as much as anything else made Harry feel as though he was approaching the edge of madness. “I’m gonna fuck you so good someday, Malfoy,” he bit out, fingers pressing hard into the skin of Malfoy’s legs, thrusting more insistently now. 

“ _Potter_ ,” Malfoy gasped. Beneath Harry, he shuddered violently and let out a wrecked moan. His nails bit so harshly into Harry’s back that he hissed from the pain, but he only redoubled his efforts, grinding his hard cock against Malfoy’s clothed pussy with rough, deliberate movements through an orgasm that seemed to have affected his whole body. He was panting and whimpering into Harry’s ear, hands shaking where he was gripping Harry’s biceps now, and Harry, satisfied that he’d gotten Malfoy off first, finally gave into the heat erupting in his belly. He came,  _hard_ , with a groan that was muffled into Malfoy’s shoulder, hips stuttering against him as he rode out the waves of white-hot pleasure, finally stopping with his heart thrashing away in his chest like a herd of stampeding Hippogriffs once he started coming down. He picked his head up after a moment, breathing hard, and met Malfoy's eyes. When he kissed him, it was messy and broken by panting breaths, and it was drenched with emotion. 

Malfoy’s fingers moved gently through his sweaty hair, tugging lightly. Harry felt him smile into the kiss.

“Everything you do, Potter,” he said breathlessly, “you do as if you’ll be dying tomorrow.”

Harry chuckled, swiping a thumb along Malfoy’s cheekbone before grabbing his wand to spell away the mess in his pants, something he hadn’t had to do in quite a long time.

“Becomes a habit, I suppose.” He lay his wand back down and did up his denims, moving his damp hair out of his face with a shake of his head. “Would you like your shirt?”

“Please.”

Harry reached over the edge of the bed and retrieved it from the floor, handing it over and watching as Malfoy covered himself back up. His nipples showed through the shirt, however, and Harry couldn’t help grinning.

“I, er — suppose I should be going, then. It’s a quarter of four already. Are you … you’re okay, yeah? That was alright?”

Malfoy’s eye roll and the smirk on his face told Harry that, yes, that had been more than alright.

“Potter,” he said suddenly just as Harry had reached for his shirt, stopping him halfway. “As it’s already four in the morning … that is to say, it would be fine with me if you wanted to — erm — stay a little longer. Sleep, you know, before you have to go all the way back up to Gryffindor Tower.”

Harry looked at him strangely, almost as though he’d never _really_ seen Malfoy before.

“I could do that,” he said softly, grinning when he noticed Malfoy’s shoulders relax a bit. “Budge up, then.”

 Malfoy lifted the covers up and slid his legs underneath, shifting over so Harry could slide beneath them as well. With a little flick of the wand on his bedside table, he snuffed out the oil lamps and pitched the room into a darkness that glowed an eerie green thanks to the lake outside the windows. He turned to face Harry, both lying on their sides, legs touching tentatively. 

It was distinctly strange, knowing he was in bed with Draco Malfoy after having just got finished dry-humping each other to orgasm. It was utterly ludicrous, and somehow very fitting for the two of them. Harry's body was still warm and buzzing wonderfully with the aftermath.

Like in that antechamber off the Great Hall, Malfoy lifted a hand to brush away Harry’s fringe, and he knew Malfoy was again looking at his scar. It didn’t bother him the way it usually did when people stared. He watched Malfoy’s contemplative face and wondered what he was thinking.

He moved slightly closer, tangling their legs together, and his chest clenched in a pleasant way.

“Do you still hate it?” Harry breathed. Malfoy’s eyebrows dipped. “The scar?”

After a moment, Malfoy said, “No.” 

“What about me?” Harry said even more quietly. “Do you still hate _me_?”

In lieu of an answer, Malfoy merely tucked his head beneath Harry’s chin and curled up against him. Harry laid an arm across Malfoy’s waist, pulling him close, deciding that was a better answer than any combination of words could ever have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a **TRIGGER WARNING** for brief mentions of sexual assault (nothing graphic) and implied rape.

Draco woke up at a quarter after nine Sunday morning, groggy and exhausted and with itchy red eyes, but feeling quite content all the same. Maybe it would have been more prudent to keep that contentment at bay considering what — or rather, _who_ — had caused it, yet he couldn’t find the energy to be upset. Not when he felt better than he had since … well, he couldn’t really remember the last time he’d felt this good, actually. When he was fifteen, perhaps. 

The pre-Dark Mark era, as he’d come to think of it. Because the summer between his fifth and sixth years, his childhood had ended.

A note had been charmed to hover above his bed, so he wouldn’t miss it. Draco plucked it right out of the air and read, in Potter’s untidy scrawl: _Wanted to get back before Ron wakes up. Hermione’ll probably make us spend the day in the library — maybe I’ll see you there. Thanks for letting me stay a while._

Draco had to bury his face in his knees, eyes closed, nails digging into his shins. He absolutely hated the way his chest fluttered at the sight of Potter’s handwriting, and the way the words themselves stained his cheeks with a deep blush. What was the use, he thought, of being so fastidiously rational if he couldn’t even manage to take his own advice? 

 _I’m not stupid enough to let myself fall for you_ , he’d told Potter. He frowned, irritated with himself. What was the use, indeed.

Of course, he hadn’t _fallen_ for Potter. It was nothing so tawdry as that. But he also couldn’t say with any real conviction that he hated him anymore, either. Hadn’t he admitted that last night, just after asking Golden Boy himself to stay a little longer? To sleep in his _bed_? 

The inescapable truth was that Potter’s presence had somehow become …  _pleasant_. Enjoyable, even. Loathe as he was to admit it, Draco adored having Potter’s eyes on him. He loved the hunger he saw there, and as Potter had so coyly pointed out, Draco loved the way Potter seemed to radiate life and passion and powerful magic. For Draco, whose world had once burned bright with the warm glow of family, was now as cold and desolate as his father’s cell in Azkaban. 

A knock came at his door, and Draco, feeling suddenly naked even beneath his pyjamas, hastily snagged the first thing he saw: a jumper on the floor beside his bed. _Potter’s_ jumper, which he had apparently forgotten when he’d left while Draco was still sleeping.

“Come in!” Draco called, tugging it over his head and shivering as soon as the smell of it enveloped him. It was strong enough to make it feel as though Potter was on top of him once again, pressing him into the bed and breathing obscenities into his ear.

The door opened and Pansy strolled in already dressed for the day, eyes stuck on what was presumably the front page of today’s _Sunday Prophet_. 

Draco’s stomach sank.

“What now?” he said, trying to keep the ambivalence out of his voice. Pansy looked up, questioning, before her face cleared up.

“Oh, this,” she waved the paper, “no, it’s nothing, I was already down for breakfast. What else could they possibly do to your family, Draco, really?”

He pulled his legs in to make room and Pansy sat down immediately, an eyebrow raised as she took in his appearance.

“That jumper is dreadful, Draco,” she drawled. “Have you always had it? I’ve given you _how_ many of mine, and you decide to pull out an old raggedy thing like that? Honestly. Shall I fetch you something else?” She started to stand up but Draco stopped her with a hand on her arm. 

“No. Thank you, Pansy, but I’ll keep this one on for now. The chill is getting to me and this thing works wonders for warding it off, hideous as it may be.”

She looked as though she wanted to badger him further, but Draco had trained her too well in their youth, and she dropped the subject without another word. He looked down at the _Prophet_ in her lap and frowned when he saw Potter’s photographic doppelgänger looking moodily out of the front page. **POTTER TO PLAY FOR ENGLAND?** it enquired.

Pansy must have seen him looking, because she said, “It sounds like a load of rubbish, don’t worry. They’ll come up with any story at all these days as long as it has to do with Precious Potter.” 

“What did it say?” Draco asked, curious against his better judgment.

“Oh, some anonymous wizard who apparently works for Puddlemere claims the owner’s been in correspondence with Potter, trying to get him to sign for next season. As I said, it sounds like rubbish. These rumors about him are getting more extravagant all the time.”

“I thought he wanted to be an Auror, anyway.” 

Pansy rolled her eyes. “Who _cares_?” she said, drawing the word out arduously. “I’m bored to tears, Draco, and everyone is insistent upon doing homework today. Even  _Tracey_ said she’s going to the library to finish her Defence essay. Tell me you’ll keep me company. You will, won’t you?” 

“Sorry, Pans.” Draco stood from the bed and went to his dresser, where he started to pull out clothes for the day. “I also have to finish my Defence essay. It’s due tomorrow, you know.”

“I know,” she intoned. “I was going to work on it tonight.” 

“I thought I was helping you and Blaise with Potions tonight.”

Pansy’s head fell back in a dramatic show of exasperation. Her mother, Draco knew, would have scolded her.

“Fine. I suppose you want to go to the library, then?”

“That would be the best place to study, yes,” Draco said, thinking of Potter’s note and suppressing a grin.

“And I suppose you won’t want to sit with Tracey.”

Draco tensed. Her cheeks took on some color, but she didn’t retract the statement.

“You suppose correctly.”

“Even if Theo isn’t there?”

“Yes, Pansy.” Draco shut one of the drawers a little too loudly. “Even if Theo isn’t there. It isn’t _just_ Theo. You know that as well as I do. Pretending you don’t won’t change anything.”

“They aren’t angry at you —”

“I don’t _think_ they’re angry at me,” he snapped, spinning around to face her. “I think they’re trying to save their own skins, same as I would if I wasn’t the one with the tarnished surname and a Dark Mark. The Notts are hardly any better off than my family is, and if Theo wants any hope at all of earning respect back within the Wizarding community, he knows perfectly well he can’t be friendly with me.

“Anyway, I don’t care,” he added with a note of finality, turning away from her again to pick up the clothing he’d lain out. “It’s one more year of school and then bollocks to all of them. Now, do you mind leaving so I can get dressed? I’ll meet you in the library.”

 

* * *

 

After stopping in the Great Hall to snag a piece of buttered toast and gulp down some strong black tea, Draco headed up the entrance hall’s marble staircase with his Defence textbook already open, skimming passages that might help him with the five-foot essay Boothby had assigned them on the theory of the Patronus Charm. They would, according to him, be attempting their _own_ Patronuses in just a few weeks. It would likely be the practical part of their final exams for the term, Draco speculated. 

Draco had never been able to produce a Patronus, something which had never failed to make him irate every time he thought about the fact that Perfect Fucking Potter had done it — and done it _well_ — when they were _thirteen_. It was only one thing among countless others that made Potter such an unexpectedly and uniquely powerful wizard. In private, he’d asked Professor Snape for help with the Patronus Charm in sixth year, but the best he’d done was produce a feeble wisp of smoke from the end of his wand. Snape had assured him it was extremely advanced magic, but somehow this hadn't made Draco feel any better.

Halfway along a first-floor corridor around the corner from the library, Draco’s book was very suddenly wrenched from his grasp and thrown against a wall, the unexpectedly loud noise making him flinch. His first thought was Conway — but that couldn’t be right, because Conway had been expelled. 

“Sorry, were you reading that?” a voice said spitefully, and Draco looked up to find a rather burly boy standing before him, a scarlet-and-gold tie telling him this was a Gryffindor. Not from his year, but surely no younger than seventeen, either. 

“Oh look, it talks,” said Draco disdainfully, sneering up into the face of a boy who might have been quite fit had it not been for the rather unsettling look of disgust combined with something dangerously close to hunger in his eyes. Not like Potter, though — this was nothing like the warm passion he saw in Potter’s eyes when he was turned on, two seconds away from devouring Draco. This was horrible, and it made his gut twist with fear. Draco’s heart leapt into his throat, yet he kept his composure. “I understand it must be difficult for you, to see people _reading_ when you can’t enjoy the pleasure of it yourself, but do try to —”

His words were cut off by a hard shove against his chest, knocking him back several steps before he found his balance.

“Go on, Malfoy, keep talking, I fucking dare you,” the Gryffindor boy spat out, looming closer, dull brown eyes gleaming with something that turned Draco’s stomach to ice. His pride wanted him to fight back, but it was Draco’s self-preservational instincts that kicked into high gear and made him decide on the spot to abandon his book and get the hell out of there. However, before he had a chance to put more than a foot of distance between himself and his attacker, the boy had grabbed his arm —  _hard_ — and thrown him back against the same wall the book had slammed into. A gasp of pain left his mouth, and before Draco could do more than move his arm to make sure it hadn’t broken, he was being shoved back against the bricks again, this time held there by brute force.

“Let go of me, you lunatic!” Draco cried, terror making his throat tight.

“Keep on struggling, Malfoy, I love watching a Death Eater squirm like a little _girl_.” Rough hands pinned him where he was, and Draco realized tears had begun leaking out of the corners of his eyes. The boy’s breath was hot on his cheek and smelled rancid. “Bet you love this, don’t you?” he breathed. His hands found Draco’s slim wrists and when they squeezed, Draco swore he felt bones grinding. He let out a little whimper of pain, but this seemed only to incise his assailant. “Knew it,” his voice was drenched disturbingly with pleasure, “everyone always said you like cock, you fucking fairy. Now you’ve got a pussy to take it with.”

Draco’s insides froze. Panic began to make his brain feel cloudy and an animal instinct had him struggling against the large boy’s grip, his brain focused on nothing other than the need to escape this situation before it got to a place he didn’t even want to _think_ about.

“Get off me!” he shouted, and even he could hear the way his voice had risen to a hysterical pitch, the fear impossible to miss. This seemed to please the boy, and his hands only tightened on Draco’s wrists further, wrenching out of him another sob of stinging agony. “You’re hurting me, let go!” 

It was when one of those unforgiving hands moved to his breast and squeezed that a surge of panicked adrenaline gave Draco the burst of strength to smash his newly-freed fist into the boy’s face. He stumbled backward, looking shocked, and Draco took the opportunity to get as far away as possible, knuckles smarting. He thought of going back to his room, but the library was much closer and he had no desire at all to wander anymore empty corridors at the moment.

Plus — and he hated being aware of this — Potter was likely in the library. And nobody in their right mind started fights in front of Potter these days. 

Wrists screaming and starting to bruise, his ribs sore where he’d been thrown into the wall, Draco pulled the sleeves of his robes down further as he walked into the library, past Madam Pince, and spotted Pansy sitting at a table with Blaise. Tracey, Daphne, and Theo were at another table nearby. Theo’s head was bent over his parchment; Tracey and Daphne seemed to be gossiping in low voices. 

Contrary to what Pansy had, with an increasing frequency these days, been nagging Draco about, Theo was in fact one of the only year-mates towards whom he bore very little ill will. Draco had, after all, known Theo the longest of any of them — as long as he’d known Vince, in fact, before he’d fallen, shrieking, into his own cursed fire. Theo was also the only one of them besides Draco whose father had been as deeply entrenched in the Dark Lord’s inner circle as his own father. If Theo wanted to make an attempt at distancing himself from all of that, at starting over, then Draco would not begrudge him the effort. He missed him, from time to time; Theo was quiet, but a good conversationalist, and he was very clever, as well. Not many people knew he’d been nearly sorted into Ravenclaw. Blaise had always been decent to talk to, but as his mother had never deeply associated herself with the Dark side in the war, there was far less understanding between the two of them.

On his way over to Pansy and Blaise, Draco spotted Potter, Granger, Weasley, girl-Weasley, Longbottom, and Lovegood all sitting around a bigger table at the other end of the room, and Draco’s gut twisted with jealousy. What must it be like, he wondered, to have that many friends? To have that many people who wanted his company? Potter was between Longbottom and girl-Weasley, and he seemed to be engaged in a conversation with the latter. The sight did something strange to Draco — his stomach writhed around enviously and an irrational tetchiness overcame him.

As if Potter had felt Draco’s gaze on him, he looked up, and the secret little smile that quirked his lips vanished Draco’s agitation so fast it might have been spelled away. He had to bite his lip to hide a grin, momentarily forgetting about his throbbing wrists, aching ribs, and the boy who’d given him the bruises that were blooming there.

When he sat down beside Pansy, she gave him a simpering smile and Blaise merely nodded his acknowledgment before returning his attention to his essay.

“Defence?” Draco enquired of him. Again, Blaise merely nodded. He’d always been a quiet, reserved sort of person, but those traits seemed to have been amplified ever since Draco had been hit with that hex, not to mention the end of the war and the part Draco had played in it. “How far along are you?”

“He’s nearly done,” Pansy answered for him. Blaise made no sign of agreement, only dipped his quill in his ink pot and continued writing. “And he won’t help me at all.”

“It’s your last year here, Pansy,” Blaise said coolly. “Learn to open a book.”

“Why should I?” She straightened her back and looked down her short nose at him. Draco snorted. “It’s not as though I’ll ever need a job.”

This made Draco’s teeth clench. He, too, had once been in that position. The Malfoy fortune had sustained generations of his family for centuries and would have continued to do so long after Draco or any offspring he might have produced had died, were it not for the Ministry’s seizure of most of their assets. It was a bit difficult to wrap his brain around, in fact — that his father, that _Lucius Malfoy_ , his idol, had been the one to destroy something which had existed in their family for more than a thousand years. This, Draco expected, was one of the things Azkaban’s Dementors would make it impossible for his father to forget, day in and out.

It was what made Draco sure his father would not last very long in there.

And even though Pansy had pointed Potter out in the Great Hall during the Battle of Hogwarts, her father had never been a Death Eater, and like Blaise’s family, the Parkinsons — while deeply entrenched in pure-blood culture and tradition — had been smart enough not to align themselves publicly with the Dark Lord. Pansy’s parents had been spending their time since the end of the war loudly celebrating the Dark Lord’s defeat and donating colossal amounts of money to every likely-looking charity that might distance them from the wrong side of modern politics. They had, in fact, been one of the most prominent contributors to the rebuilding of Hogwarts. 

“Draco, you’re brooding again.”

His wrists throbbed painfully and he gritted his teeth.

“Perhaps he’s grown weary of your inane prattling,” Blaise said. Draco was startled into a short gust of laughter. He could see Blaise smile down at his essay, but it disappeared quickly.

He missed Blaise, too.

Draco began pulling his things out of his bag when he remembered the book he’d left lying in the corridor back where he’d been assaulted, and there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell he was going back to retrieve it. Not alone, anyway, and he would have died before telling Pansy or Blaise what had happened.

“Forgot my textbook,” he muttered, and let out a hefty sigh. “Pansy, lend me yours. You aren’t using it anyway.”

As Pansy dug it out of her own bag, Draco’s eyes drifted back to where Potter was sitting with his large group of friends. He appeared utterly at ease, a charmingly carefree smile on his face as he leaned across the table to speak to Weasley, who guffawed loudly before Madam Pince hissed at him to quiet down. Granger looked disapproving yet sickeningly fond. Potter and girl-Weasley were laughing.

“I’m not looking forward to the practical portion of this lesson,” Blaise said suddenly, setting his quill down on top of his parchment. “I can’t imagine why Boothby is bothering — there are full-grown wizards who can’t produce a proper Patronus. I suspect Potter and his disciples are fully prepared to show off when the time comes.”

Draco thought about what Potter had said just that morning about Professor Boothby, and how he despised being used as an example or called into the spotlight.

“I expect they are,” Draco said anyway. “Potter’s been doing it since third year.”

“What _is_ it with this Potter obsession everyone seems to have developed?” Pansy complained, banging the textbook onto the table and sliding it toward Draco. “I am utterly sick of hearing about him everywhere. Can’t even read the news anymore without running across some new rumor …”

“Pansy, he defeated the Dark Lord,” Blaise drawled. “He is quite literally the most famous wizard alive.”

 _“So?”_ she droned. Draco caught Blaise’s eye and they both smirked. It was wonderful — he hadn’t shared something like that with anybody in quite some time. Besides Potter, of course. “Don’t exaggerate, Blaise — it’s not as though anyone outside Britain cares.”

“Are you daft, Pansy?” Blaise asked, his calm tone of voice making it sound as though the question was genuine. Pansy scowled. “Half the scholars who have written about Potter are foreign witches and wizards. The Dark Lord may not have been a threat outside of Britain yet, but Potter’s survival of the Killing Curse did not go unnoticed by people in other countries. Beyond that, since you seem not to have grasped what _happened_ last year, the Dark Lord would not have stopped at Britain, had Potter not killed him. This didn’t occur to you, I suppose?”

Draco, who was quite amused, was also pleased to see color blossom across Pansy’s cheeks. As Blaise had never been inclined to share much about his opinions concerning the war, it was interesting to hear how much he had given thought to it. Somehow, it didn’t surprise Draco to learn that Blaise had apparently been privately hoping Potter would finish it. The boy was a Slytherin right down to his bones and a pure-blood supremacist as fiercely as any Death Eater, but Draco had always gotten the feeling Blaise didn’t care for the dramatics of a war. 

“Fond of Potter now, Blaise?” Pansy sneered. “I didn’t realize you’d joined the fan club. They’re over there across the room right now, why don’t you go join them?”

But Blaise, with a haughty roll of his eyes, had returned to his essay. 

The next hour was spent mostly quiet, Draco and Blaise focusing their attention on finishing their homework while Pansy half-heartedly did the same. Every now and then Draco would look up, and sometimes he would catch Potter looking back. The eye contact was exhilarating, and Draco was the one to break it each time, overwhelmed not just by the feelings making his chest swell but by the insistent pool of warmth low in his belly, reminding him of the orgasm Potter had given him no more than eight or nine hours ago. 

It was wonderful and absurd and completely baffling, looking at Potter, surrounded by all his friends, with dozens of their peers between them, every one of which knew how Potter and Malfoy had always loathed each other. And every one of them was completely unaware that so recently their hero, their saviour, had been in Draco’s bed. Every one of them — except for Granger — knew nothing of their clandestine meetings, of the numerous times they had now shared a gut-wrenchingly poignant kiss. Nothing of the way Potter’s callused fingers had been so painstakingly gentle as they brushed across Draco’s cheeks; how his voice had trembled when he’d asked Draco whether he could take his shirt off; or the way his eyes had shone with such heartbreaking sincerity when he’d offered to take Draco on a broom again. And maybe they knew Potter had had something to do with Lucius Malfoy’s changed sentence, but they didn’t know what it meant. They didn’t know what was behind it. 

Draco liked it this way. He liked having a piece of Potter all to himself. He liked having something that was just them and nobody else.

When one o’clock rolled around and Blaise rolled up his parchment, Draco had about half a foot left of his own.

“Finished?” Draco asked. Blaise nodded.

“I’m hardly halfway,” said Pansy. Yet she rolled her parchment up as well, and Draco couldn’t be arsed to try and stop her. It seemed Blaise cared about as much as he did. “I’m going to go have lunch, are you coming, Draco, darling?”

“I’m going to finish my essay,” he said. Pansy rolled her eyes but she didn’t argue, and a minute later both she and Blaise had gone from the library in search of food. Out of habit, Draco turned towards Potter and caught his eye once more. This time, however, Potter nodded almost imperceptibly towards the bookshelves. A moment later, he was standing up, saying something to his friends, and then he’d disappeared into the history section. Draco sat still for a moment, rather stunned by how quickly it had all happened, but it didn’t take him long to pull himself together.

He set down his quill slowly, reflecting on the way his heart had begun hammering in his chest, and then stood up from the table and went towards the section two down from where Potter had gone in. Amidst the cramped rows, Draco began winding his way through the maze, anticipation lighting his nerve endings on fire. Potter was nowhere to be seen; Draco ran his fingers along the dusty spines of ancient volumes as he moved among the shelves, trying to find that iconic head of hair and those burning green eyes below it.

Like at the Halloween Ball, a pair of arms encircled his waist from behind, hidden under what Draco knew to be Potter’s Invisibility Cloak. 

“Fancy running into you back here,” Potter said into his ear. Draco shivered. The hands on his waist disappeared and a moment later Potter had lifted the Cloak and pulled Draco underneath as well. Their ankles were surely showing, but hidden as they were behind the shelves, it seemed safe enough. “Hello,” he grinned brightly, and pulled Draco by the neck into a heart-stopping kiss that he melted into. "You smell wonderful."

“Hello yourself,” Draco said, pulling away. Without thinking about it, he grazed his thumb across Potter’s bottom lip. Potter watched him, a hand lifting to circle lightly around Draco’s wrist — which, Draco realized too late, hurt. He hissed in pain and pulled it back, and immediately Potter’s eyebrows dipped with concern.

“What is it?” he whispered, trying to reach for Draco’s arm, but he pulled it away. His cheeks flushed. “Malfoy, were those _bruises_ on your wrist?” Something flashed in his eyes, and then he said in a rather rough voice, “Did I do that to you?” 

“No,” Draco said immediately, shocked by the turn Potter’s mind had taken. Too late Draco realized he’d just thrown away his only plausible cover story. “No, it, er — well, yes, maybe. I mean — I don’t know. I suppose it could have been, but it’s not a problem, Potter, honestly, it’s — they don’t hurt, I assure you —”

“Who did that, Malfoy?” Potter cut him off, and his voice was so dangerously low, so full of barely-suppressed anger, that Draco was momentarily left breathless.

“It —” He looked back and forth between Potter’s eyes, trying to think of something to say, but in the end, he found that lying to Potter’s face was too difficult. “I don’t know his name,” he settled on finally, resolving that this was, after all, the truth.

“What did he look like?” Potter countered instantly. “What did he do?” Draco only looked up at him, unable to get the words out, suddenly feeling panicky and too hot under the Cloak with Potter’s eyes burning holes into his skin. “What happened, Malfoy?” he repeated, more firmly this time. The longer Draco went without speaking, the more it seemed to fuel Potter’s concern, yet Draco could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t be worse than keeping quiet. Finally, Potter’s hand came back up to his neck, a gentle thumb caressing his cheek, turning Draco’s face up when he’d looked away, unable to stare into those burning eyes any longer. “Draco, what _happened_?” His voice was so soft, so raw, when he said his name, that Draco felt his knees go weak. 

Abandoning his pride for the second time today, Draco circled his arms around Potter’s neck, buried his face in his shoulder, and took a deep, calming breath, letting that familiar scent wash over him. Potter didn’t ask anymore questions — he hugged Draco back without hesitation this time, his arms strong and firm, and Draco felt his parasympathetic nervous system kick in like someone had flipped a switch. 

This felt safe. Potter —  _he_ felt safe.

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” he said into Potter’s ear after half of minute of standing like that. He felt Potter nod and a kiss was dropped onto his shoulder, above where another bruise — this one smaller and so much sweeter — had been sucked into his skin that morning.

“I punched him, you know,” Draco said as he pulled away, and it warmed his heart when Potter laughed. “Right in the face.” 

“And then came straight to the library to study. Stoic of you, really.”

Draco rolled his eyes. “Speaking of,” he said, fidgeting a bit, and Potter gave him an odd look. “This whole Patronus thing for Defence. I — erm — I haven’t been particularly successful in the past —”

“You can’t produce one,” Potter amended cheekily, and the smirk on his face made Draco scowl.

“No need to look so pleased, Potter,” he drawled. “But if you must know, then yes, I have been incapable of producing a proper Patronus. Seeing as Boothby is likely to stick it in the exams, and — well — seeing as you helped a number of people fifth year —” Potter was clearly enjoying this, and although he knew exactly what Draco was getting at, apparently he was going to make him say it. It was especially awkward given that Draco had made it his life’s mission to _disrupt_ and therefore disband the very meeting where Potter had been teaching people to cast a Patronus Charm back then. “Are you _really_ going to make me say it?”

“I’d really like it if you did,” Potter said, looking positively _arrogant_ , and it was so foreign on that ever-modest face that Draco was startled by the pulse of arousal it provoked. 

“Fine. Will you help me,” he dead-panned, cheeks aflame. Potter’s smile grew. 

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that. Once more?”

Draco scowled. “Will you _help_ me, Potter?” he said through clenched teeth. Potter merely raised his eyebrows, cupping his ear as though he was hard of hearing. “Will-you-please-help-me-Potter,” Draco bit out, and at this Potter laughed delightedly.

“I would be happy to.” He kissed a corner of Draco’s mouth, something that was beginning to drive Draco mad with desire each time he did it. “I have to get back. We’ll talk this week.”

Before Draco could say anything else, Potter had dipped away, back towards his group of friends, towards his real life. Draco stayed hidden among the shelves another few minutes before going back to his table and, instead of finishing his essay like he’d planned, he packed up his things and went to meet Pansy and Blaise at lunch.

Suddenly, his mind was too full of all things Harry Potter to do much focusing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	13. Chapter 13

With the first Quidditch game of the season on Saturday — Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff — Harry found it nearly impossible to find time to spend with Malfoy during the week despite his promise they would talk. He was running the team through practices every day before breakfast, making it so he couldn’t afford to be up at one and two in the morning like he’d been doing before. 

Those bruises on Malfoy’s wrists were constantly at the back of Harry’s mind, though; he often wondered whether the culprit wasn’t someone he regularly passed in the corridors, and it disturbed him endlessly to know that was probably the case. To know that somebody was being allowed to continue going about their life like they hadn’t physically harassed another student, without retribution. Even worse was Harry’s nauseating suspicion that the attack had been sexual in nature, which would have explained Malfoy’s extreme unwillingness to discuss whatever had happened. It made him sick to his stomach, and yet until Malfoy decided to tell Harry who had done it, there was very little he could do.

On the day of the match, Harry enjoyed a brief respite from his circling thoughts. The whole school was buzzing with excitement over the first game of the year — even the Slytherin and Ravenclaw students had come down to breakfast chatting happily about who they were rooting for. It was so much like the old days that Harry felt almost as though he could have looked up at the head table and seen Dumbledore sitting there, blue eyes shining with delight as he tucked into his food. The atmosphere of the Great Hall was so cheerful that this thought, instead of being sad, managed only to fill Harry with nostalgic warmth and a pleasant sort of ache. Dumbledore, he thought, would have been proud to see what had become of Hogwarts the year after Voldemort’s downfall. 

Five or six different people stopped by to wish Harry luck personally, slapping his back and punching his shoulder and telling him they were counting on him to flatten Hufflepuff. A particularly burly seventh-year, Kenny Helstrom, nearly knocked Harry’s bacon out of his hand when he grabbed Harry’s shoulder and shook it bracingly.

“Hufflepuff doesn’t stand a bloody chance against you, eh, Potter?” he grinned. “Maybe if Diggory was still around. Good luck out there. You too, Weasley.” 

As Kenny walked away, Harry looked around at Ron and saw he, too, had been struck oddly by the comment about Cedric. For his part, Harry couldn’t quite tell whether he’d been offended by it or not.

“That was a bit rude,” Hermione chimed in airily, peering at Kenny’s back before returning to her paper. 

“I don’t like that bloke,” Ron said with a shake of his head. “Reminds me of McLaggen.”

“Oh, please, Ron,” said Hermione, but Harry could see a smile twitching at the corners of her lips. “Cormac was harmless.”

“Maybe. _That_ guy isn’t, though.” He nodded down the table where Kenny Helstrom had taken a seat among his friends and begun to wolf down food. “Not surprised it looks like someone hit him in the face. That bruise was brutal earlier in the week, did you notice? Love to know who did it, I’d send them a gift.” 

Harry’s back straightened suddenly, the proverbial lightbulb going off above his head, and he glanced once again at the brown-haired Gryffindor boy; Harry had spoken to him before in the common room, but he’d never paid all that much attention. He was just one Gryffindor among a hundred others. Even from here, he could see that Ron was right: there was a fading yellow bruise on his jaw, like somebody had punched him there several days ago.

His stomach dropped, but Harry quickly assured himself it couldn’t possibly be what he was thinking. Yes, Malfoy had told him he’d punched his attacker in the face, but _Kenny Helstrom_? It seemed so absurd, so unlikely. This whole time Harry had been eyeing the Slytherins, wondering which one of them had done it … but what if it _wasn’t_ a Slytherin? What if, in fact, it was a _Gryffindor_? 

The idea that the person who had given Malfoy those bruises — had scared him so badly he wouldn’t even talk about it — could have been living right under Harry’s nose this entire week was enough to make him feel sick. And that it could possibly have been a _Gryffindor_ … his own _House_ …

But he didn’t have time right now to start going down that path, not when he needed to be one hundred percent focused if they wanted to win this match. Kenny Helstrom may have had his arrogant opinions, but with or without Cedric Diggory on their team, Hufflepuff was strong this year. Peakes and Coote had dropped in on their training sessions at Harry’s request, and the information they had brought back was nothing to be taken lightly.

“We’d better go, Ron,” he said, setting his fork down on his plate of half-eaten eggs. “Ginny,” he called a little further down the table, grabbing her attention, “You ready? Locker room in ten.”

Half an hour later found them walking out onto the pitch to uproarious cheering. It filled Harry with a familiar elation he’d only ever associated with Quidditch, and when he shook hands with Dennis Pepperidge, Hufflepuff’s new Captain (a tall, rather lanky boy with a beaming smile that seemed to Harry the epitome of sportsmanship), it was with the firm mindset that he was going to enjoy the _shit_ out of this match.

 

* * *

 

Hufflepuff’s Chasers ended up being as good as Peakes and Coote had warned, but it was their Keeper who had made the game a tense one. He looked like he might have been a fifth- or sixth-year, and he had managed to block Ginny’s, Dean’s, and Izabella’s shots every nine times out of ten. By the time Harry had spotted the Snitch, Gryffindor had been up only ten points at seventy-to-sixty. 

It had been a good dive, Harry reflected with a satisfied grin when he was back in the changing rooms an hour later. He’d been circling the pitch from quite a distance up when he’d spotted the little golden ball hovering near one of the goal posts, catching it only a foot off the ground and eliciting wild applause. Better than that, though, as it had always been, was the rush of adrenaline Harry got from it.

After showering, Harry went back up to Gryffindor Tower hoping he might be able to get Hermione alone to talk, but he was greeted with no such luck. After Gryffindor’s first win of the season, the common room was bursting with energy; Seamus and Neville had managed to get their hands on a few crates of Butterbeers which were being passed around the room, while Ron and Ginny had taken it upon themselves to uphold Fred and George’s tradition of lighting up an assortment of magical firecrackers from Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Harry was pulled into the festivities with cheering and backslapping and hair-ruffling, and the best he could do was endure it until he was able to slip away towards Hermione, who was sitting by the fire, knitting and having a conversation with Parvati Patil. 

“Hello, Harry,” said Parvati when he pulled up a third chair. “Brilliant playing today. I was just asking Hermione if it was true, what they were saying about you and Puddlemere in the paper, but she won’t say a thing.” 

“I told her to ask _you_ ,” Hermione grinned.

“I know the _Prophet_ loves to write rubbish about you,” Parvati said, rolling her eyes, and Harry felt a deep stirring of gratefulness towards her. “But you really are very good, I thought maybe they’d gotten something right for once.”

“Thanks,” Harry chuckled. “It’s, er, _mostly_ true, I suppose. I was never in contact with the owner, though — it was one of their recruiters, got in touch with me to ask whether I’d thought about playing professionally. But it’s not as though I wouldn’t have to try out like everyone else —”

“Harry!” Seamus Finnigan’s slightly off-kilter voice cut Harry’s sentence short. He flopped down messily on the arm of Harry’s chair and dropped a hand into his still-slightly-damp hair, ruffling it wildly. “You rascal. Good show out on the pitch. Gonna win us the Cup again this year, are you?”

“Seamus, are you _drunk_?” Hermione questioned sharply, though the effect was ruined by the amusement on her face. Parvati, Harry noted with some surprise, had taken on a faint blush, her dark eyes glittering where they rested on Seamus.

“Aye, m’lady,” he nodded loosely, toothy grin the very essence of everything Harry had ever come to enjoy about his Irish roommate. “Just a wee bit. Only way to celebrate, ain’t it? What d’you say, Potter?”

“I say you’re holding out on us, Seamus,” Harry turned to look up at him, grinning wryly. “Why is it you’re the only one here off your trolley?”

Seamus howled with laughter and pulled Harry into a one-armed hug that was, due to their current position, more of a chokehold.

“I love it!” he shouted, and ruffled Harry’s head once more. “The Boy Who Lived to bust me bollocks. Tell you what, mate, I’ll see if I can’t nick some Firewhisky for tonight, eh? I reckon Dean’ll help me out.” 

With that, he pushed himself off the chair, dropping a wink in Hermione’s and Parvati’s direction, and went to rejoin the festivities. Parvati was blushing furiously.

“D’you fancy him?” Harry asked, a smile widening on his face.

“Do you mind!” Parvati hissed, making a gesture with her hands that told Harry to lower his voice. Hermione was chuckling as she clicked her knitting needles together. “I only think he’s grown rather fit, that’s all. It’s nothing to go around shouting about.”

“He isn’t seeing anyone, far as I know,” Harry said, but Parvati had clammed up on the subject. It was just as well, because as strangely endearing as this development was, Harry was still desperately eager to speak to Hermione alone, and with Ron distracted by the party, now was ideal. When Parvati had left, he took her abandoned chair right beside Hermione and said, “Will you come with me a minute?”

Looking vaguely curious but with a knowing expression beneath it, she nodded and followed Harry out of the common room through the portrait hole, down the corridor, around a corner, and into a deserted stairwell.

“I’ve been meaning to ask how everything is going,” she said before Harry could speak. “But there hasn’t been an appropriate time. This _is_ about Malfoy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, leaning back against the wall. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him this week, Quidditch practice kept me too busy. You — er — haven’t seen him, have you?”

“Not since the day before Halloween when I gave him those pads,” she said with a shake of her head. “I would have told you if I had.”

Harry nodded, working up to the thing he’d been meaning to discuss with her all week.

“Last weekend,” he said, digging his hands deep into his pockets, “I spotted some bruises on his wrists. Pretty dark ones, like someone had been holding them, you know? He wouldn’t tell me who’d done it to him, and he didn’t want to talk about it, seemed really shaken up, which made me think …” He trailed off, looking at Hermione with a strained expression. She seemed to catch on quickly.

“Oh, goodness,” she breathed, turning a bit white. “Oh, _dear_. You _don’t_ think somebody …”

“Forced themselves on him?” Harry bit the words out, and Hermione went paler still. “No … not to that extent, at least. Malfoy told me he punched whoever it was in the face, probably let him get away before anything worse could happen. I’ve been dwelling on it all week, trying to figure out who it might’ve been … and then this morning, Ron pointed out Helstrom’s bruised jaw.” 

Hermione’s eyes widened, the expression on her face mirroring exactly what Harry thought he must have looked like when it had dawned on _him_ earlier.

“Now, Harry, that’s … that’s a _very_ serious accusation —”

“I know,” he said shortly. “Believe me, ‘Mione, I know that. I keep trying to tell myself it’s just a coincidence — it’s like Ron said, he’s a bit of a prat, anybody could’ve decided they’d had enough and hit him. But … what if it _is_ him? He can’t get away with that … whatever _it_ is. I still don’t know exactly what happened.” 

“You should just tell Professor McGonagall, let her deal with it,” Hermione said definitively, but Harry shook his head.

“Malfoy’d do his nut if I went to her about it. He didn’t even want to talk to _me_ , and I can’t break his trust that way, Hermione. He’d never speak to me again.” 

After a long pause, she said, “Alright … well, perhaps you should try to talk to him again.” She leaned against the wall beside him, a look of deepest concern on her face. “What you have to try to understand, Harry, is that for a lot of women, this sort of thing is extremely difficult to talk about, and they’ve been female all their _lives_. Malfoy has only had this body about two months now, and if somebody tried to violate it, well … you need to be very delicate when you ask. I know you don’t want to hear this, but if going to McGonagall isn’t something you’re willing to do, then this may be a situation you need to keep yourself out of, Harry.” 

“You’re completely mad if you think I’m forgetting about this, Hermione,” Harry said tightly, pushing away from the wall. “I’m gonna talk to him again this week, see if I can’t get a name out of him.” 

“And what is it you’re going to do with that name should you manage to get it?” She moved away from the wall as well, looking at Harry with worry written all over her face.

“That depends on what I find out.”

“Harry —” Hermione grabbed his arm when he made a move to exit the stairwell, and he turned to face her with thinly-veiled fury. Talking about it again had brought back all his initial anger surrounding the situation. “Please don’t lose your head. _Talk_ to him again before you make any decisions.”

“I’m not making any decisions yet,” he assured her, voice tense, and looked down at her grip on his arm with a raised eyebrow, prompting her to let go. “First, I’m going to find out if it _was_ Helstrom, then I’m going to find out what exactly he did, and when I know that, then I’ll decide what I feel like doing. But I’ll tell you one thing, Hermione — if it’s as bad as I think it is, I’ll _go_ to McGonagall, but not before I’ve had _my_ say first.”

Hermione seemed to understand that Harry had made up his mind, because she didn’t try to stop him again when he left.

 

* * *

 

Boothby was late to Defence on Wednesday that week, leaving all the eighth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins queued up outside the door to the classroom. Harry kept glancing at Malfoy, who was standing with Pansy and Blaise Zabini, and it made his chest feel warm to note that Malfoy kept looking at him, as well. He still hadn’t managed to find a time to meet with him, but Harry had slipped him a note in Potions the day before asking if he wanted to meet in the Prefects’ bath tonight. He’d gotten no note in response — merely a surreptitious nod while Slughorn was writing on the board. 

Ron was enthusiastically explaining something to him and Hermione about the Chudley Cannons’ stats for this season when Harry noticed a muted expression come across Hermione’s face. He looked over his shoulder and saw, with a jolt, Kenny Helstrom and a couple of his other Gryffindor friends passing through the corridor. Abandoning any pretense of listening to Ron’s story, Harry watched the beefy seventh-year as he walked past, flashing a grin Harry’s way before his sights landed on someone else — Malfoy, leaning against the wall on the other side of the corridor. Malfoy went paler than usual, and a moment later his eyes flickered to Harry’s, almost like a reflex. 

This was too much for Harry, and it was all he needed to know for sure he'd been right. A rage so fierce that it made his blood seem to boil beneath his skin overcame him within seconds; he barely even heard Hermione’s quiet, terrified squeak behind him before he was grabbing his wand from his pocket and pointing it at Kenny’s back.

 _“Locomotor mortis!”_ he shouted, and Helstrom’s legs snapped together as if they’d been bound by invisible wire, sending him crashing to the floor loudly. Harry felt his heart beating furiously inside his chest, barely aware of the way the corridor had gone utterly silent — indeed, barely even aware of Malfoy himself, pressed so tightly against the wall he might have been trying to sink right through it.

Kenny’s friends were turning him over, for he’d landed on his front, and there was blood dripping out of his nose where it had presumably smashed into the floor.

“The hell are you thinking, Potter!” one of the boys yelled, and yet Harry saw that he looked half-afraid in spite of his brave words.

“Get out of my way,” Harry said, and his tone brooked no argument. He had eyes only for Kenny, who appeared both shocked and a little bit fearful. _Guilt_ , Harry thought. That’s what that was. A guilty conscience. As if Harry had needed more proof than the terrified look in Malfoy’s eyes. Kenny’s friends let go of him, albeit hesitantly. Kenny had risen onto his arms, propping himself up despite his useless legs, and even tried to back away when Harry stepped forward. 

Crouching in front of him, Harry kept a carefully neutral expression as he surveyed the Gryffindor boy on the floor.

“I know what you did, Helstrom,” he said softly. “And I know what you _tried_ to do. And if you even _think_ about doing it again, I’ll make sure you’re expelled. Do you believe me?”

Kenny Helstrom nodded slowly.

“Good. I don’t know how a piece of shit like you got into Gryffindor, but mark my words, I’ll have my eye on you from now on.”

With a wave of his wand, Harry released Kenny’s legs and watched him scramble to his feet, looking shaken. And because it didn’t seem fair that the bruise Malfoy had given him was almost gone, Harry pulled his arm back and smashed it into Kenny’s jaw in the exact same place, veins throbbing with satisfaction afterwards despite the way his knuckles were now stinging with pain. A satisfying crack had let everyone present know that Helstrom's jaw was now broken.

“Potter!” a voice yelled, and Harry turned to see Boothby running down the corridor with his hand on his hat, looking shocked. “What in the name of _Merlin_ —” 

“He attacked him out of nowhere, Professor —!” one of Kenny’s Gryffindor friends started up, but Kenny himself cut him off, glancing warily at Harry, a hand on his jaw. 

“It’s nothing,” he told Boothby thickly, the words distorted by the broken bone. He seemed to be just barely holding back a scream. “Just a row we’d had the other day. It’s fine.”

Boothby appeared torn between his rampant obsession with anything Harry Potter and having just witnessed said obsession throw a punch in the middle of a crowded corridor.

“Er —” he began, but Kenny cut him off.

“We’ll just be going to the hospital wing,” he said, and shot warning glances at both of his friends. With one last cautious look at Harry, he scarpered, disappearing around the nearest corner.

There was a shocked silence that engulfed the crowd, and Boothby was the first to break it.

“Alright, then, enough!” he said, as though everyone had been gossiping madly. “Potter, you’ll stay after the lesson. Everyone inside, we’ve a lot to cover today and we’ve already missed ten minutes of class!” 

Hermione’s expression was impossible to read; Ron looked utterly baffled but tentatively pleased; everyone else was staring with little to no shame; all Harry could think about, however, was what Malfoy’s face might look like, because he was doing everything in his power not to make eye contact should someone notice. He’d kept everything he’d said to Kenny deliberately vague so no one else would know what he’d been talking about — making eye contact with Malfoy would have made the whole point moot.

Yet when everyone was settled into their seats and Boothby had begun lecturing, Harry snuck a glance over at the blond. 

And if Harry wasn’t very much mistaken, Malfoy appeared to be smiling to himself.

 

* * *

 

“You are _completely_ unhinged, Potter, do you know that?”

Harry, whose legs were dangling in the water of the perfumed tub in the Prefects’ bathroom, looked over his shoulder and grinned broadly when he saw Malfoy standing there, hands on his hips.

“I’ve been told that before, yes,” he said, and his smile only grew when he saw Malfoy roll his eyes. Still, a small amount of apprehension overcame him when he remembered what Hermione had said, about how carefully this whole thing needed to be handled, and Harry climbed out of the tub with his shins dripping soapy water and his rolled-up jeans damp at the bottom. “You aren’t … angry, are you?”

For a moment, Malfoy didn’t answer. He seemed to be considering Harry, and his face was indecipherable.

“No,” he said finally, and Harry’s shoulders relaxed. “A little bit irritated you’re so utterly incapable of delicacy, but then, I suppose that comes with the territory, doesn’t it?”

Harry let out a huffed breath, head tilting to one side in exasperation.

“Giving him a broken jaw _was_ delicate,” he said stiffly. “He deserved to be beaten to a pulp.”

Malfoy walked closer then, and Harry didn’t move, eyes never leaving Malfoy’s pretty face. When he stopped, they were inches apart.

“How did you know it was him?”

“The bruise,” Harry said. “And the way you looked when he walked by. I’m sorry, Malfoy, I just … I couldn’t let him think he was going to get away with that. Why didn’t you _tell_ me it was a Gryffindor?”

Malfoy shrugged. He looked highly conflicted.

“You didn't even know for sure what happened. I’d never told you what he did. All you saw were bruises.”

“I had a pretty good idea,” Harry said gruffly.

After another moment of silence, Malfoy said, in a soft voice, “He touched me.” One small hand indicated vaguely around his chest. Harry clenched his jaw. “Here. That was when I punched him.”

“If you want to talk to somebody about it,” Harry began carefully, unsure of what Malfoy's reception might be to the idea of Mind Healing, “I could ask Hermione to help find —”

“No,” Malfoy cut him off. He moved closer, and now he curled his fists in the front of Harry’s robes. “I don’t want to talk about it. I want to move past it, and forget about it.” He paused, a strained look on his face, and then suddenly he was lifting onto his toes and pressing a kiss to Harry’s mouth that was so gentle it left him short of breath. “Thank you, Potter,” he said quietly, eyes averted, cheeks pink. Harry hardly thought about it when he lifted a hand to cup one of them in his palm. “You must be getting tired of saving me by now.”

Harry tilted Malfoy’s face up, the pad of his thumb pressed to the apple of one warm cheek.

“You’re worth saving, Draco,” he said, and the name felt like a spark of electricity through his system. Malfoy seemed exactly as affected by it as he had been in the library. His eyes glazed over, and in spite of the topic of conversation, Harry couldn’t help the tiny, amused smirk that quirked the corner of his lips. He leaned forward carefully, brushing his stubbled cheek along Malfoy’s smooth one. “You like it when I call you that,” he breathed; a statement, not a question. Malfoy pulled back just enough to attach their lips again, Harry smiling into it and going along willingly.

With Malfoy’s hands in his hair and making little, breathy noises every time their mouths broke apart, Harry wanted nothing more than to press him up against a wall and have a go at him, but he resisted. It seemed a terrible idea to try touching Malfoy when the memory of what Kenny had done was so fresh, so Harry contented himself with snogging Malfoy breathless for the moment. Which was not to say snogging Malfoy breathless didn’t have its own perks.

After several minutes of this, it was Harry who finally pulled away, much too aware of the way his cock was rapidly growing stiff inside his denims.

“Problem, Potter?” Malfoy lilted, biting impishly down on his bottom lip. He would, of course, know exactly what Harry was dealing with at the moment, and perhaps for the very first time be feeling glad for something about his new body. It was utterly impossible to tell if Malfoy was as turned on as he was, after all. The only thing he had to go by were Malfoy’s flushed cheeks and panting breaths.

Harry rolled his eyes, eliciting a bright laugh from the blond. It warmed Harry’s chest.

“Laugh it up, _Draco_. See if I teach you to produce a Patronus.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Refill the tub with some cold water and you’ll be fine.”

Harry shot him a scathing look, which only sent Malfoy into another fit of giggles.

“Really, though, Potter,” he went on, moving to sit beside Harry where he’d taken his place at the edge of the tub again. With the colder weather, he’d abandoned his shorts and was wearing a pair of light blue, silk pyjama bottoms that he rolled up to his knees. “Can we start soon? I need enough time to practice before exams.”

“Sure,” Harry said, kicking his foot in the water and destroying an enormous formation of pink bubbles. “I have Quidditch practice set for Monday and Wednesday evenings and Friday mornings. We could keep doing Wednesday nights, like tonight. Does that work for you?”

“It does,” he nodded.

“Great. I’ll figure out somewhere we can practice and let you know.”

Again, Malfoy nodded. Then, a minute later, said, “What was his name? The moron who attacked me?”

“Kenny Helstrom,” Harry said darkly, kicking at the water again. “Seventh-year. Ron hates him.”

“Does he?” Malfoy sounded surprised. “Why?”

“Thinks he’s an arrogant prick,” Harry told him, shrugging. “Said something about Cedric before the match on Saturday, bothered the hell out of me. Believe me, I had more than one reason to punch him.”

“Did you get in trouble for it? Or did Boothby get down on his knees and suck you off?”

“He gave me a detention,” Harry said, laughing. “Promised he wouldn’t tell McGonagall, though. Said it could stay between us as long as I kept my head about me next time. I’ll be helping him with something or another tomorrow night. If I'm lucky it'll be half as fun as the time Lockhart made me address all his fan mail.”

Suddenly, a small, slightly chilly hand was sliding into Harry’s; Malfoy was tentative in the way he laced their fingers together, so Harry finished the job for him, squeezing firmly and tugging Malfoy a bit closer, so there was no more than a few inches between them where their tangled hands lay.

“Potter?” he said quietly. Harry looked over at him, catching Malfoy’s grey eyes and feeling his stomach flip.

“Yeah?” 

“I like you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	14. Chapter 14

The punch outside the Defence classroom spread around the school like wildfire, and the fact it had involved Harry Potter only added to the story’s rampant popularity. Nobody seemed to know _why_ Harry had punched Kenny Helstrom, but the fact that it had been another Gryffindor was perhaps the most-discussed bit of the whole thing. Everybody seemed to have reached the same conclusion, though: if Harry Potter was swinging a fist at somebody, they probably deserved it. This was such a one-eighty from the way his peers had treated him prior to his defeat of Voldemort that it actually irked Harry quite a bit, and had it not been for his desire to protect Malfoy from becoming involved at all, he might have been tempted to start another fight just to prove he wasn’t a saint.

He was pretty confident Kenny wasn’t likely to start giving out details about “what he’d done,” as Harry had so cryptically alluded the other day, and with the real story contained to himself, Hermione, Kenny, and Malfoy, the issue should have been laid to rest.

The problem, Harry realized Thursday evening, was Ron.

Given that Harry had Friday mornings scheduled for Quidditch practice, he’d gone up to the dormitory early, thinking that if he tried very hard, he might be able to get to sleep before eleven. No sooner had he pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms and a jumper (noting that he still hadn’t gotten the other one back from Malfoy) when the door opened and Ron came in, unusually quiet and looking uncertain.

“What are you doing up here?” Harry asked, stuffing his clothes from the day into a little hamper that the house-elves would empty overnight. “Going to bed early, too?”

“Er — do you have a second?” Ron asked. Harry couldn’t read his face, but he knew immediately what this must be about. In all honesty, he was surprised it had taken this long.

“Yeah. Sure. What is it?” Harry sat down on the edge of his bed in order to slip a pair of clean socks over his feet, glancing curiously at Ron, wondering how this would start — and not only that, what he, Harry, would say. He resolved to let Ron lead the conversation for now; perhaps he’d be able to get away without telling him everything.

“Oh, come off it. You know,” Ron said, lifting an eyebrow at Harry. “I was waiting for _you_ to say something first. Thought you were bound to, but you haven’t brought it up all day.” 

“Brought what up?” Harry tried lamely. This seemed to aggravate Ron, because his face darkened a bit.

“Really, Harry?” He sat on the edge of his own bed, one leg bouncing in an obvious gesture of nerves. “I’m talking about Helstrom, aren’t I? I mean … Merlin, why’d you do it? What did you mean, you know what he did? Everyone’s been talking about it and no one seems to have a clue, but I thought you’d have at least told _me_. And I know you told Hermione, because every time I bring it up she goes quiet and changes the subject.”

Harry, feeling rather abashed, let out a soft sigh.

“Are you angry at me?” he asked before Harry could say anything. “Do you not trust me? What is it?”

“I’m not angry at you,” Harry said firmly, holding Ron’s gaze, hoping the sincerity in his eyes would convey to Ron that he was telling the truth. “And of course I trust you. It’s … complicated, is all.” 

“Complicated how?”

Harry fidgeted where he sat, thinking about Malfoy, about how many times he’d kissed him, about meeting up with him under the Invisibility Cloak right in the middle of the library. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea, after all, to keep all this from Ron. At least not for this long.

“Harry, does this have to do with Malfoy?”

The words shocked Harry so thoroughly that all he could do in response to this was blink owlishly at Ron, left speechless by his astonishment. His expression seemed to answer the question for him, though. 

“I knew it.” Ron shook his head, looking both disgusted and betrayed. “I bloody knew it was him. It always is with you, isn’t it?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked hotly.

Ron didn’t answer the question. “I thought saving him from the Fiendfyre would be the last of it, but now you’re protecting him from some bully. I couldn’t think of any other reason you wouldn’t have told anybody what Helstrom did, even _me_. But I kept hoping I had to be wrong. That you would never do that.”

“He’s not ‘some bully,’ Ron,” Harry said, a little too sharply. Ron’s eyes narrowed. “Helstrom was getting handsy, and if Malfoy hadn’t punched him in the face, he might’ve got around to doing a lot worse than feeling him up.”

Ron seemed stunned by this, but for a long minute he didn’t say anything. Then: “How do you know that?”

“How do I know _what_?”

“That he nearly … did that to Malfoy. How would you know that if you weren’t there?”

Harry, who felt he’d just been cornered into an inescapable position, ran a hand through his hair.

“Unless it wasn't just about Helstrom,” Ron went on when Harry didn’t say anything. “Unless it’s more than just your thing about saving people, even baby Death Eaters, apparently. So, what … you’re _mates_ now, is that it? You check in on him, make sure everyone’s treating him right or you’ll knock their teeth out in the corridors?" 

“You think it’s okay, then? What Helstrom did?” Harry said tightly, feeling anger bubbling low in his stomach. “I thought you hated him.”

“I _don’t_ think it’s okay, and I _do_ hate him,” Ron snapped. Harry felt himself bristle. “I just hate Malfoy _more_. I thought you did too. But apparently that’s not the case these days.” 

“I’ve moved on, Ron,” Harry said, his voice a strained calm as he tried very hard to reign his emotions back in. “The war is over. I don’t have the energy to hate _anybody_ anymore.” 

“So you _are_ mates, then?” Ron’s face was twisted into a grimace.

Harry hesitated. Ron gave him no reprieve; he merely stared, unforgiving, waiting for an answer Harry was so clearly desperate to avoid giving.

“Not … exactly,” he said finally. Ron’s eyebrows dipped.

“You don’t hate him anymore, you start rows in his honor, but you’re not mates. _Exactly_ what the hell are you, then?”

“I don’t know … something more, I suppose," he blurted. "I — er —  _like_ him, Ron,” Harry said a bit awkwardly, shrugging his helplessness. Ron didn’t seem to process the words, however; his face was entirely blank, expressionless, impossible to read. Tentatively, Harry added, “I mean … I have feelings for him. We’ve been, er, meeting up in secret ever since he got hexed. At first I _was_ just trying to help, but … I dunno. It turned into something else.”

Ron blinked. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Harry waited with his heart starting to pound.

“What?” Ron said finally. 

“I fancy him —” Harry began, but his sentence fell short when Ron stood up from his bed, towering over Harry with his face splotchy-red and his chest heaving. 

“ _What_?” he repeated, and his voice had risen, making Harry’s teeth clench. This had been precisely the reaction he’d been avoiding. “You’re taking the piss, right? Any second now, you’re going to start laughing. Are Seamus and Dean hiding somewhere? In on the joke? I suppose Hermione’s waiting downstairs to join in?”

“Do you really think Hermione would go in on a joke like that?”

Ron blinked again, several times. Whatever the thoughts going through his head, they seemed to be causing him pain, for he was still grimacing, the muscles in his jaw clenching rhythmically. “Malfoy,” he said, as if for confirmation.

“Yes.”

“ _Malfoy_ ,” he repeated, “the scummy, traitorous Death Eater who never used to waste a chance to insult my family. Whose father tried, on multiple occasions, to get my dad fired from his job.”

Clenching his teeth again, Harry nodded stiffly.

“The one who called Hermione a Mudblood? Who tried to turn you in to You-Know-Who right before you saved his miserable life? Who let Greyback and the other Death Eaters into the school, and nearly got Bill murdered? _That_ Malfoy?”

“Watch it, Ron,” Harry said in a low voice. Ron’s eyes widened. “It’s not as if I’m unaware of those things. I haven’t forgotten. I could never forget. I just …” He trailed off, shrugging again. This was precisely why he’d wanted to wait — because he didn’t even have this whole thing figured out for _himself_ yet. How could he possibly explain it to Ron? “I’ve forgiven him for the things he did when he was a kid. And I’ve gotten to know him, and I … I like him. A _lot_. Dealing with this hex, it’s brought out a more vulnerable side of him. I understand if it’s difficult for you to accept, and I certainly don’t expect you to —”

“Difficult to accept!” Ron shouted, looking for all the world like he was descending slowly into lunacy. “Harry, you’re … you’ve lost your mind! You _have_ forgotten, all you’re seeing is a fit blonde bird you think you’d like to shag, you’re forgetting who the hell it is under there! What about _Ginny —_!” 

“Ginny and I spoke a while ago,” Harry said quietly, cutting through Ron’s tirade. “We’re not together anymore. We can talk more about that if you want, too. I should have told you. But the point is, I —”

“What, that you’re in love with _Malfoy_ now? _Seriously_ , Harry? God, do you know what you sound like? That slimy git nearly got my brother _murdered_ , how many times do I have to repeat that? He’s a murderous, bigoted, cowardly —”

“ _Watch_ it, Ron!” Harry said again, more sharply this time, standing up now; this seemed to fuel Ron’s fire, because his eyes alighted with rage.

“No, _you_ watch it, Harry! How can you stand here and defend that spineless scumbag! How can you stand here and look me in the eye and tell me you’ve forgiven him when he’s the reason Bill’s face is mutilated!”

“Because I _have_ forgiven him!” Harry roared. His fists curled into balls at his sides, like he was barely restraining himself from lunging. “Because he _means_ something to me! And if you were a halfway decent friend, you’d give me a chance to explain —!”

But before Harry could finish what he was saying, a fist flew into the side of his face, sending him reeling sideways and back onto his bed. He could taste blood in his mouth. But by the time he’d recovered from the blow, jaw singing with pain, and stood up again, the dormitory door was already closing behind Ron with a resounding slam.

 

* * *

 

Hermione had to do the rest of the explaining. Ron wouldn’t _look_ at Harry, let alone speak to him. Harry was perfectly okay with this — he didn’t much feel like speaking to Ron, either. His veins throbbed with resentment in time with the throbbing of his freshly bruised jaw.

Meanwhile, Harry felt as if he would burst right out of his skin every time he thought about his and Malfoy’s last meeting in the Prefects’ bath. It still seemed surreal, to know Malfoy had, in very plain words, told Harry he liked him back. There was something taboo about it that somehow exacerbated Harry’s excitement and enthusiasm; this wasn’t just any blossoming relationship, after all — it was _Draco Malfoy_ , and Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter were not, in any version of reality, supposed to have feelings for one another unless it was hatred and a lust for blood.

Of course, it wasn’t a _relationship_ , not really. They weren’t seeing each other or anything. It was merely an open acknowledgment of the fact that something other than animosity — yet with the same amount of passion — existed between them. Malfoy had adamantly refused to discuss it beyond his admission of feelings for Harry, and yet this in itself was such a monumental step that Harry wasn’t bothered.

What he wanted now, more than anything else in the world it seemed, was to tell Hermione. He hadn’t any real clue as to how she would react, but the exhilaration of the whole thing was so great, Harry felt he might explode into a million pieces if he wasn’t able to gush about it a bit.

Even Friday morning’s highly awkward Quidditch practice couldn’t bring him down, and it was afterwards, as he sat down for breakfast beside Hermione, that he asked if she had time to talk in private before their first class of the day. Ron had only just sat down across the table, ignoring Harry entirely, and didn’t seem to have heard. If he did, he showed no sign of it. She answered Harry with a silent nod, and once they’d both finished eating, she followed him into an antechamber off the entrance hall — the same one where they’d waited as first years to be invited into the Great Hall and Sorted. 

“If this is about Ron —” she began, but cut off when Harry shook his head vehemently. A careful smile began to creep up around the edges of her mouth, having noticed Harry’s jubilant mood. “Harry, what _are_ you grinning about? What’s happened?”

“I saw Malfoy Wednesday night,” he explained, “after the — er — incident with Helstrom.” Hermione’s lips pursed, for she had been highly disapproving of the way it had been handled, but she didn’t interrupt. “I thought he might have been angry with me —” 

“Which he would have every right to be,” Hermione reminded him sharply.

“He wasn’t, though,” Harry said, grin widening impossibly. “He was sort of irked, told me I couldn’t handle things delicately, but he wasn’t _mad_. He seemed kind of pleased, actually. He thanked me. I mean, _actually_ thanked me, with the words and all. I think, deep down, he was more afraid of Helstrom than he was letting on. Are you ready for the best part?" 

Hermione, who seemed unable to suppress a smile in the face of Harry’s excitement, rolled her eyes, not unkindly.

“I can’t imagine,” she said, lifting an amused eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me or make me guess?”

“He told me he likes me,” Harry burst out, and he knew he must look absurd, beaming the way he was, but he couldn’t help himself. His veins might have been filled not with blood but helium at the moment, and it seemed distinctly possible he would simply lift right off the ground and float away. “He grabbed my hand, right, and he told me he _likes_ me, Hermione, after I told him so many times how I felt, and he kept saying it wasn’t real, that I was tricking myself, that the two of us could never have feelings for each other, and even though I knew how I felt, sometimes I thought maybe he was right, maybe he _had_ to be right, you know? He _said_ it, though, he actually _likes_ me back, and I —” 

But in the middle of this sentence, Harry’s words broke off, for he’d been nearly slammed backwards by the force of Hermione flying into him. Her arms went around his neck, squeezing tight, and all Harry could do, all that made _sense_ to do, was to hug her back, bury his face in her familiarly-scented, bushy hair, and smile like an utter lunatic.

He was absolutely stunned to see, when she finally pulled back, that her warm brown eyes were swimming with tears.

“Oh, Harry,” she said softly, a small hand reaching up to gently brush her fingers across his bruised cheek, sweeping away a piece of his fringe, just as if she was his mother. “Do you know, I had begun to think I’d never see you look this happy again.” 

Feeling speechless and a bit choked up, Harry could only manage to shake his head, lifting a hand to place over Hermione’s. He let out a laugh that was half disbelief and half enormous, overwhelming gratitude.

“Ron is _very_ upset,” she said, pulling her hand back and — absentmindedly, it seemed — straightening a wrinkle on the shoulder of Harry’s robes. “He has his reasons, but … oh, you _deserve_ this, Harry. It would be a lie to say I didn’t wish it was somebody else, but I can see that he makes you very happy, doesn’t he?" 

“He does. I like him so bloody much, Hermione.”

She nodded, as if he’d confirmed her suspicions. Eyes still a little teary, she broke out into a brilliant smile that warmed Harry’s chest. 

“Well, gosh, this is so exciting!” she suddenly squealed. Harry let out a loud bark of laughter. “I never would have believed it, not in a million years. I mean, I suspected he fancied you, of course, but it seemed so _unlikely_ he would ever admit it to himself. I was so worried that you were only setting yourself up for heartbreak, you know … I thought it was only a matter of time. This development is absolutely unfounded!” 

“I figured you would be a little more … conservative about it,” Harry admitted, grinning helplessly in the face of her enthusiasm. “Thought you’d probably lecture me again, to be honest.” 

“You know the risks, Harry,” she said, nodding once, firmly. “I know you do. We’ve spoken about it already, I’ve said what I have to say on the subject, and now all I can do is trust that you know what you’re doing … or are at least prepared for the worst. And, well … anything that makes you this happy, it would be wrong of me to spoil it for you with a lecture about something you’re already aware of.” Her glowing smile returned. “So he _really_ told you he liked you? Just like that?” 

“Just like that,” Harry agreed, positively buzzing with delight. There had been some part of him that had agreed wholeheartedly with Hermione — that hadn’t really, deep down, believed anything could come of these rapidly-swelling feelings he’d been developing for Draco bloody Malfoy, of all people. And yet, giving it that chance — slim as it may have been — had paid off. “He didn’t say _much_ , wouldn’t even talk about it after he said it, but he _did_ say it. Counts for something, especially with him.”

“I would say so,” Hermione chuckled. “So, er — what does that mean for you? I mean … Ginny told me a month ago now that the two of you sort of … mutually decided you weren’t going to continue where you left off. Are you and Malfoy …?”

“Oh, no,” Harry said quickly, shaking his head, eyes round when he realized where she was headed with that train of thought. “We’re not … no. Er — I don’t think so, at least. I don’t know _what_ we are. I think we’re just … playing it by ear. I mean, sleeping in his bed wasn’t even enough for him to admit he fancied me, it took breaking Helstrom’s jaw to force it out of him. I can’t see whatever this is moving very quickly.”

“You slept in his _bed_? _”_ Hermione asked, amusement dancing in her eyes even as a hand moved to cover her mouth and hide her giggle.

Harry, who had turned a light shade of red, said, “It was Halloween night, okay? We met up afterwards and stayed up so late he offered to let me sleep there, so I wouldn’t have to climb back up to Gryffindor Tower at four in the morning. He has a private room, because of the hex, so it was a good place to talk.”

“He _offered_ , did he? Out of the goodness of his heart, no doubt?” Hermione said, looking absolutely tickled. Harry, who hadn’t the first clue as to what that was supposed to mean, lifted an eyebrow at her. “Oh, Harry, he’s completely smitten with you, isn't he? I’ve suspected _that_ since I saw him staring at that picture of your parents at the Halloween Ball and made the most endearing comment about how you must have gotten your green eyes from your mum. As I said, I _never_ thought he would admit it, but I had an inkling he was already enamored. Of course he asked you to stay.”

Harry had never quite gotten used to the amount of information Hermione sometimes dumped on top of him, and after going back over some of the key points in his head, he finally said, “Why didn’t you tell me any of that before?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” But when Harry gave her a dull look, she explained, “I wasn’t going to tell you that and get your hopes up when I thought for _certain_ it wouldn’t lead anywhere good. Now that he’s apparently come to terms with his feelings, I see no harm in sharing my speculations.” 

“You did tell me you thought he’d had feelings for me a long time, though, back when I first told you about this in the library.”

Hermione shifted uncomfortably, looking abashed. “Yes, and I very much regretted it afterwards. If you _had_ gotten your heart broken, I would have blamed myself for giving you ideas. Having feelings for somebody and _acknowledging_ those feelings are two wholly different things, after all.”

“How long, exactly, do you think he —”

A couple shouts of laughter from the entrance hall interrupted Harry’s sentence, serving to remind him and Hermione that breakfast was nearly over, and that they had Herbology in just about fifteen minutes.

“We’ll talk more later,” Hermione said, squeezing his arm and flashing another brilliant smile. It lit her face up beautifully, reminding Harry of a much younger, more innocent Hermione Granger, who had had large front teeth and untamable hair and a penchant for hissing at Harry and Ron if they tried to sneak out of the common room. “When are you seeing him next?”

“The weekend, if we can manage,” he said sullenly. “But maybe not until next Wednesday. It’s so hard to find time around everything going on. But I’ve promised to help him with his Patronus, since Boothby is probably going to put it in the exams.”

“Well, I know from experience that you’re a wonderful teacher, so he’s very lucky,” she said, giving him one last hug and then leading him back into the entrance hall. Ron and Ginny had chosen that moment to leave the Great Hall, and when he saw Harry and Hermione, he stomped away angrily. Ginny flashed them a curious look but didn’t stop to ask, heading off to her first class of the day. “Oh, dear,” she sighed. “I expect he knows what we were talking about.”

“He’ll get over it,” Harry assured her, although he couldn’t have said with any degree of certainty how long that would take. “Come on. Let’s get to the greenhouse.”

 

* * *

 

They did have time to meet, if very briefly, early Sunday morning. Harry had managed to get a note to Malfoy during the day on Saturday, letting him know he’d found a large, empty classroom to use for practice, and so that was where they’d met. They hadn’t done any practicing, however — mostly just snogging, and Harry had returned to his dormitory around two in the morning with a painful erection he’d been forced to take care of before he could fall asleep.

It was Wednesday night before they had a chance to spend any real time together again, and by then, Harry felt quite as though he would go mad.

He was there early, at ten to midnight, pushing desks and chairs and other furniture up against the back wall, making enough room for them to practice. It occurred to him while he was doing it that the Room of Requirement would have been much easier, but he was eager to avoid finding out whether or not it had survived his last encounter with it, and he thought Malfoy would probably be okay not going anywhere near it, either. Anyway, it wasn’t as though Umbridge was prowling the school this time.

Malfoy showed up a couple minutes after midnight and looked around with a nod of approval.

“Hey,” Harry said, smiling brightly, and abandoned the last desk to go over to the blond and steal a kiss.

“The bruise is almost gone,” Malfoy said, eyes skimming across the fading remnants of Ron’s ire on Harry’s cheek. “No trouble from him sneaking out tonight?”

“He knew where I was going,” Harry shrugged; he had no intention of discussing this. It would only drag his mood down. “The rest of them were already asleep, he wasn’t going to start something and wake them up. He might be angry with me, but he isn’t going to blow my cover.”

Malfoy’s lips pursed, apparently not quite as convinced, but if this was the case, he said nothing.

“So … how are we going to do this, exactly?” he asked, gesturing at the empty place in the middle of the classroom.

“Well, we don’t have a boggart — that’s how I learned, because for me it turned into a Dementor, so I was able to practice casting a Patronus on it. But —”

“What?” Malfoy interrupted him, and Harry gave him a quizzical look. “A _Dementor_? Merlin’s tits, Potter, you knew the greatest Dark wizard of all time was trying his best to come back to life and kill you, and the thing you feared most in the world was a _Dementor_?” 

Harry, cheeks heating, only shrugged. “Lupin was surprised too. But, er — as frightened as I was of Voldemort, I suppose I was always angrier than I was scared. The Dementors … they made me hear my mother. Screaming, pleading with Voldemort not to kill me, to kill her instead.” Malfoy’s face had gone paler than usual and he’d looked away. Harry swallowed. “Anyway, so … as I was saying, we don’t have a boggart, so we’ll have to do without one. Helps with focusing on a good memory, but it kills the desperation a bit. Anyway, can you show me what happens when you try to perform the Charm?”

“It’s barely a wisp of smoke,” Malfoy muttered, looking quite embarrassed. It was ridiculously endearing. “Snape tried to help me once, but … well, I obviously couldn’t do it, could I?”

“Go ahead, then. I just want to see where you’re starting, that’s all.”

With a great huff, Malfoy pulled his wand out of his robes and, with a rather lot of attitude, waved it and said the incantation.

There was not even a puff of smoke. 

“You’re being obstinate,” Harry laughed, walking closer and sliding a hand across Malfoy’s lower back, the other one wrapping delicately around his wrist and helping him hold the wand steady. “Close your eyes,” he breathed, and not only did Malfoy do as he’d asked, but he felt the small blond shiver under his touch. “When Lupin taught me, he said I needed to think of a happy memory — but I don’t think he was quite right. The memory can’t just be happy … it has to be _powerful_. It has to have meaning.”

He fell silent, thumb smoothing over the soft skin of Malfoy’s wrist while he watched his face, waiting for him to choose a memory. Harry let his eyes roam across that perfect, milky skin, across his high cheekbones, and thick lashes, and pink lips. There was a tiny scar just below Malfoy’s ear that he’d never noticed before; Harry burned with curiosity over how he’d gotten it. He was achingly beautiful, and it left Harry feeling a bit breathless.

“Do you have it?” he whispered.

“I think so,” Malfoy said, eyes slowly opening, and Harry didn’t miss the blush on his cheeks. He wanted more than anything to know what he’d chosen, but decided now wasn’t the time to ask. “It’s not as much happy as it is … intense. In a good way, though. Will that work, do you think?” 

“Does it draw up powerful emotions?”

Malfoy nodded, eyes flickering to Harry’s for a moment.

“Then it’ll work,” Harry said. “Concentrate on it a moment, let it fill you up, and when you’re ready, cast the Charm.” Hesitating barely a fraction of a second, he pressed a kiss to Malfoy’s cheek before stepping away, and he was pleased to see the blush that it evoked. 

Malfoy was silent for several long moments, eyes closed again, breathing deeply. Finally, his eyes opened, he stared resolutely at the opposite wall of the classroom, and shouted, “Expecto patronum!”

It was not a corporeal Patronus, but it was definitely more than a wisp of smoke — a bright flash of light erupted from the end of his wand, filling the small room briefly before disappearing again. Chest heaving, eyes round with shock, he looked over at Harry, who couldn’t help smiling.

“I’ve never done anything like that before!”

“That was brilliant,” Harry told him. “Whatever memory you chose was a good one. It’ll take a lot more practice, but I reckon you should be in good shape by the time exams are here.”

“It’s a bit exhausting, isn’t it?” Malfoy said. He was breathing heavily, and some of his platinum-blond hairs had fallen in front of his eyes. The short pixie cut he’d been sporting two months ago had begun to grow out a bit, and frankly, Harry adored it.

“Only at first,” Harry assured him. “It’ll get easier. But yes, it takes a lot of energy to pull it off, especially a fully corporeal Patronus.”

“Can I see yours?” Malfoy said, blush returning. “Only time I ever saw you do it was third year, and I didn't exactly get a good look then.” 

“Er — yeah, sure.”

Taking out his own wand, Harry only needed a moment to gather up the requisite energy and emotion it took to produce a Patronus, pointing his wand and roaring, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” A silver stag burst forth from his wand, circled once around the room, and then stopped, incredibly, in front of Malfoy. Harry watched, utterly bemused, as Malfoy, who appeared as shocked as Harry, reached out a trembling hand to touch it. His long, pale fingers caressed the silvery neck below the large antlers, and the stag even seemed to arch beneath the touch before it disappeared without a trace.

Malfoy looked to Harry, who looked back with an expression of open wonder.

“Do they … usually do that?” Malfoy asked in a soft voice.

Harry could only shrug. He knew, of course, that oftentimes a person’s Patronus was deeply connected to another person — Snape’s doe; his mother’s doe and his father’s stag, almost _too_ perfect; and Tonks’s werewolf, before Remus had married her. He wondered with a sudden ferocity what Malfoy’s Patronus would be. 

“Dunno,” Harry said finally, deciding not to mention his musings. “Mine never has before, anyway. Er — do you want to have another go, then?”

Malfoy gave it three more tries — eliciting the exact same response as the first time — before he decided he’d had enough for the night. Harry tried to remind him how utterly advanced the magic was, but Malfoy still seemed frustrated.

“So,” he said as Harry pocketed his wand and pulled his jumper back on, which he’d discarded in the middle of their lesson. “I suppose I won’t see you until the weekend?” 

The unmistakable note of poutiness in Malfoy’s voice struck Harry in such a way that left him aching to get his mouth on every possible inch of pale skin. He walked over to him and slipped his arms around Malfoy’s small waist, pulling him close and catching his lips in a deep kiss that Malfoy melted into.

“It’s not as though I’m leaving the castle,” Harry teased when he’d pulled back, delighting in the scowl that appeared on Malfoy’s pretty face.

“You know what I mean, Potter.”

“Tell you what,” Harry grinned mischievously, ducking his head to pepper kisses along Malfoy’s jaw right up to his ear. “I’ll find a time to pull you aside tomorrow between lessons.”

“And what is it you’ll do with me between lessons?” Malfoy retorted, pushing Harry back by the chest and lifting an eyebrow at him.  

“It would ruin the surprise if I told you, wouldn’t it?”

Malfoy’s eyes rolled, but he looked pleased enough with the promise. After some feeble protesting on his part ("I'm not a blushing schoolgirl, Potter!"), he finally agreed to let Harry walk him back down to the dungeons, and underneath the cover of the Cloak, Harry pushed Malfoy up against the wall to the right of the hidden entrance to Slytherin and reattached his lips to that blissfully sweet skin. Malfoy allowed him free reign this time, hands threading into Harry’s hair even as a soft, strangled noise escaped through his lips.

“Fuck, I can’t wait to get my hands on you again,” Harry said into his throat, and Malfoy whimpered beautifully. He kissed his way back up to Malfoy’s mouth and settled there for several minutes, tongues tangling, exchanging hot, panting breaths, until — with a stifled moan — Malfoy pushed Harry back once more.

“It’s nearly three in the morning, Potter,” he breathed, hissing when Harry nipped at the corner of his jaw. 

“Right …” Harry stole one last intoxicating kiss from that addictive mouth and finally let go of Malfoy’s hips. “I’ll see you some time tomorrow, then. When you’re least expecting it. Stay on your toes, Malfoy." 

Malfoy rolled his eyes and ducked out from under the Cloak, leaving Harry laughing to himself as he watched the blond disappear inside.

His heart was full to bursting on his way back up to Gryffindor Tower, and not even the thought of Ron could penetrate the sense of serenity which had enveloped Harry so completely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	15. Chapter 15

That Friday, just over a week since he and Ron had had their row, Ginny cornered Harry after their morning Quidditch practice when he was coming out of the changing rooms, hair damp from a shower. She had toast in her hand, and Harry momentarily flashed back to being fourteen years old and stepping out of the Gryffindor portrait hole to find Hermione in a similar state.

“Er — hey, Ginny,” he said, eyebrows dipping curiously and glancing at the food. “All right?”

“Ron’s told me about Malfoy,” she said candidly, making Harry’s stomach do a strange sort of startled flip-flop. “I’m not here to yell at you,” she added quickly, probably having seen the apprehension on his face. “I’m a bit disappointed and very, _very_ confused, but I also know you can’t choose how you feel about somebody, so … I suppose I’m curious, more than anything. Do you think we could go for a walk?” She held out the toast, and after heaving a sigh and deciding this was for the best, he agreed. 

“What’s he told you, then?” he asked, taking a bite of toast and savouring the warmth against the chilly wind. “I still don’t know what Hermione told _him_.”

“Well … he said Hermione told him that you’ve only told _her_ so much. But the gist of it was that you’ve suddenly found yourself with — er —  _feelings_ for Malfoy.” She looked over at him, as though the sentence had been so ludicrous she’d half expected him to laugh and tell her she’d gone barmy. When he didn’t, her cheeks took on a faint tinge of pink, and she nodded. “I see … so, it’s true, then? You and he are …?” 

“No,” Harry said flatly around his food, and took a moment to swallow down the rest of the toast and jam in his mouth. “We’re not dating or anything, if that’s what you mean. He’s only just recently admitted he likes me, too. We’re still just … trying to figure everything out, I guess. I know it doesn’t make sense to you guys —”

“No, it doesn’t,” Ginny said frankly. “Not one little bit. He’s done so many terrible things, Harry. I’m not … I’m not trying to patronize you. I _want_ to understand, and more than anything I want to be able to support you, I just …” She tapered off, the look on her face one of deepest disquiet. “I don’t see how you can forgive someone the things Malfoy’s done.” 

They stopped walking, beside the lake now, and Harry let his eyes wander over its glassy surface. Something that tasted bitterly like guilt was at the back of his tongue. 

“Not without questioning everything I ever thought I knew about myself,” he said quietly. “If you were looking for a straight answer, I don’t have one for you, Gin. I don’t even have one for myself. That's why I wanted to wait to tell anybody. The whole thing is just … I mean, I can barely put it into words.” He dragged a hand through his hair and sighed again, watching the ghost of his breath linger in the cold air before disappearing. “It’s funny, really — Malfoy and Ron believe exactly the same thing — that I’ve forgotten who Malfoy is. That I’m just seeing a girl I’d like to —” He broke off, remembered whom he was talking to, and upon seeing the embarrassed flush on Ginny’s cheeks quickly amended his course, “Er — that I’m just seeing a girl, that is. The ironic part of the whole thing is that that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I don’t like him because I think he’s a fit bird, I like him because I like …  _him_. But of course, that only makes it worse. Because —”

“Because he’s a twat,” Ginny finished for him. Harry thought about arguing, and then decided it wouldn’t have been truthful, or helpful.

“Exactly,” he exhaled. “The thing is — that’s not _all_ he is. It’s just … the only part he ever showed us. There’s something else there, really deep down, that I’m trying to uncover.”

Ginny tossed the rest of her own toast into the lake and began toeing the ground thoughtfully. Harry got the feeling she was avoiding his eyes. When she finally looked up, they were rimmed with red, and he realized she had been fighting back tears just now.

“Is it really enough to forgive him, Harry? Does that deep-down something-else make up for the things he did? For _Bill_?”

Harry held her gaze for a long moment, trying to think of a way to translate his thoughts and feelings into words that made sense, that didn’t sound cold, and heartless, and hollow.

“I can’t help it, Ginny,” he finally settled on weakly. “ _Nothing_ will ever make up for what happened to Bill. Nothing. Or … for any of the things Malfoy did. Poisoning Ron. Cursing Katie and Madam Rosmerta. The things he’s said. The people he’s hurt. You can’t fix those things. You can’t erase a Dark Mark. You can’t erase Bill’s scars. And maybe it isn’t even my place, maybe I don’t have the right to dole out forgiveness … Malfoy said that to me himself, believe it or not.” He let out a hollow laugh, thinking of the things Malfoy had said to him in the corridor that day after Lucius’s overturned sentence had hit the papers. He heard it so clearly Malfoy might have been saying it into his ear:

_You don’t get to decide who’s forgiven, Potter! You don’t get to decide who gets the Kiss, and who stays in prison, and who gets a full pardon. You don’t get to decide that!_

“I don’t know,” he went on, “but for whatever it’s worth, I _have_ forgiven him. In spite of everything that’s happened, and everything he and I used to be to one another.” He let out a deep, shuddering breath. Ginny still looked pained, but she appeared contemplative as well. She was listening, at least — hearing him out. “I know that’s hard to hear, and I don’t expect you to like it or pretend to understand it when I don’t understand it myself. And I’d never expect you or your family —  _Bill_ — to forgive him … that’s not what I want from you, from Ron. From anybody. He doesn’t believe he deserves it himself. But … I do.” After a pregnant pause, his voice thick and his throat tight, he added feebly, “And I’m sorry, Ginny. It’s like I said … this whole thing has made me question myself in a way I’ve never had to do before. If you’re as angry with me as Ron is, I could never hold it against you.”

To his surprise, Ginny lifted a hand and cupped his cheek for a brief few seconds; there was a pain in her eyes that he wished immediately he could forget, and suddenly he regretted this conversation. How could he have been so stupid to talk about this with _Ginny_?

“I’ll always care about you, Harry,” she said quietly, and his heart felt as though she’d grasped it on either side and ripped it into two bloody pieces. “If this is what makes you happy, then I _will_ try to understand it. I trust you more than I hate Malfoy; if you say there’s something there … then there must be something there. Just be careful, won’t you?”

Harry, feeling like he’d just received a gift he didn’t deserve, could only think to nod.

“I always am,” he said, voice rough with emotion. “And … thanks, Ginny.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Draco was feeling …  _tetchy_. Paradoxically, it was the source of his tetchiness that was making it so bad.

He _wanted_ Potter. It was an instinctively disturbing thought, until he reminded himself, over and over again, where this surge of lust was coming from. Namely, the fact that the one orgasm Draco had experienced within the last three months had been Potter’s doing, and that had been close to three weeks ago. Furthermore, Potter was always _touching_ him when they were together; even if he hadn’t had a penchant for pushing Draco up against walls and snogging the life out of him, Draco thought all that inadvertent touching would have left him wet and wanting all by itself. He remembered all too clearly the way Potter’s hands had felt holding him down on the bed, skimming across his chest, gripping his thighs. The warm presence of his hand on his lower back when he’d been thinking of a good memory to conjure up a Patronus, his breath on his skin. 

And Potter, the complete and utter pillock, had promised him on Wednesday to pull Draco aside between lessons using that infernal Cloak of his — yet Thursday had come and gone, Friday’s morning lessons were now over, and still nothing had happened. His anticipation was at an all-time high, so that every one of his nerves felt frazzled and sensitive, and every small noise startled him.

“ _Relax_ , Draco,” Pansy said briskly as they left lunch in the Great Hall and headed for the common room to retrieve their things for afternoon lessons. He had jumped nearly a foot in the air when a fourth-year Slytherin girl had accidentally bumped into him on the stairs. “You _are_ jumpy today. I think the lack of Quidditch is catching up to you finally — you always had a way of letting out energy when you had practice.”

Draco scowled, but he didn’t bother responding — it would have required explaining to Pansy why he no longer wished to get on a broom if he could help it, and _certainly_ not by himself. 

They got their bags and swapped out their morning textbooks, and they were halfway to History of Magic when something invisible grabbed Draco’s arm. He stifled a scream, and as soon as he realized he wasn’t imagining it and it hadn’t been another clumsy moron running into him, a thrill of excitement made his body tingle from head to toe.

“Pansy,” he said suddenly, hoping she wouldn’t hear the tremor in his voice. She looked around, an arched eyebrow raised in question. “I’ve just realized, I forgot one of my books. I’m going to run back down and get it. I’ll be there shortly — Binns won’t notice.”

The lie made his body thrum, and he didn’t wait for Pansy’s response before he turned around and let an invisible Potter lead him down a flight of stairs and into the empty classroom they’d been using for practice on Wednesdays. 

As soon as the door closed, Potter pulled off his Cloak, sporting a grin that was far too smug to be allowed.

“I don’t know what you’re so smiley about,” Draco drawled, putting on an air of breezy nonchalance that he didn’t feel at all. It was everything he could do not to let his gaze wander to Potter’s mouth or his hands. Because he was deliberately looking away, he didn’t see Potter throw a spell at the door to lock it, and the sound made him jump. His cheeks went instantly red, and Potter’s amused smirk didn’t help. “Very subtle, Potter.” 

“What’s with you?” he chuckled, and there was a dancing light in his eyes that both irritated Draco and made his insides twist with hunger. “Snapping at me, jumping at small noises. _Twitchy_ little ferret, aren’t you, Malfoy?”

The reference to something Granger had once said to him was not lost on Draco — those words, so humiliating, had lodged themselves in Draco’s brain forever, it seemed. Potter, he had learned in the last couple months, was really quite dry and sarcastic, and his teasing — at least when it was directed at Draco — was often merciless. This was nothing terribly new, of course: Potter had always gotten under his skin. The difference was that Draco had never before experienced it in a way that made his blood boil with lust instead of rage.

“Watch who you’re calling a ferret, Scarhead,” Draco sniped back. Potter’s eyes flashed. He came closer still, and Draco stood his ground, not bothering to hide the way his breathing had increased, because — absurdly — he _wanted_ Potter to know.

“Seriously, what’s with you?” he said, more softly now, eyes narrowing. He’d stopped at a distance of maybe a foot, and Draco could clearly see the startling green of his eyes. “Why’re you acting all jittery?”

“I’ve only been waiting for you to do something since Wednesday, haven't I? You _did_ tell me to stay on my toes, did you not?” he said in a would-be off-the-cuff voice, but he regretted it instantly, for it seemed to have clicked the last piece into place for Potter, who looked suddenly mischievous.

“What, you’re _horny_?” he said, half-laughing, and his voice was coloured with pleasant surprise. Draco flushed furiously. Something dark and lascivious passed across Potter’s face, only stirring Draco’s arousal.

“Potter!” he yelled, scandalized despite his obvious anticipation.

“Are you?” Potter pressed. His voice had dropped to a lower register, and when his hands landed on Draco’s waist, his pulse jumped. He let Potter back him up to the wall and went into a kiss willingly, his fingers hesitant where they skimmed along Potter’s stubbled jaw. Potter was far more certain in his movements, his grip firm on Draco’s hips, eyes blazing when he pulled away, leaving Draco winded. “Tell me …” he breathed, and began mouthing his way back to Draco’s ear, “are you wet right now?”

The question was the last thing Draco had been expecting, and it hit him with the force of a stampeding hippogriff, leaving him dizzy with arousal and clutching at Potter’s robes. He _was_ wet, that was the thing — he could feel it making his knickers damp, something he’d begun to desensitize to the more often it happened. It was still utterly foreign, but far less terrifying and unimaginable than it had been that first long, agonizing month. 

Words trembled on the tip of Draco’s tongue; he knew what he wanted, even if the thought was intimidating. What if he got to that point, and then found he couldn’t go through with it? But there was no time to sit and think about it; Potter’s words hung thick in the air between them, and a moment later, Draco heard himself saying, “Why don’t you find out for yourself, Potter?”

Potter pulled back a little bit, his eyes round with amazement. Satisfaction at having taken him so by surprise made Draco grin, and it even helped him feel as though he’d found his footing a little bit.

He thought for certain Potter was going to ask him if he was sure — it was what he’d done every other time, and Potter was _noble_ like that. But he must have seen something in Draco’s eyes — desperation, Draco was willing to bet — because he didn’t say anything at all. He merely held Draco’s gaze a few moments, asking the question silently, and then his hand was slipping beneath Draco’s robes … and froze, his eyes shooting back up, wide once again. 

Draco felt his cheeks burn, but he said nothing. Within the last week or so, he’d begun resorting to some of the skirts Pansy’s mother had sent; the slacks he kept using were wearing out fast, being the only pair, and however the house-elves cleaned them, it was fading the color even more quickly. He had plans to buy several more pairs when he visited Hogsmeade. The skirt was a simple one, plaited, and a blouse had been tucked into it. 

“Are you serious?” Potter croaked. The hunger in his eyes was worth every humiliating thought Draco had suffered while putting it on that morning.

“Perverted as ever, aren’t you, Scarhead?”

Draco’s self-satisfied smirk was wiped right off his face, however, when he felt the fingers of Potter’s right hand brush across the skin on the inside of his thigh; Draco’s belly clenched forcefully, a sharp breath coming out even as his fist tightened in Potter’s robes. He could feel the roughness of callouses, the heat of those fingers as they moved up, up his thigh, and then skimmed carefully across Draco’s knickers. His eyes fell closed and a highly embarrassing sound came out of his throat.

“You _are_ wet,” Potter breathed, sounding reverent. “You still haven’t tried touching yourself?”

Draco, pressing his lips together to stifle every sound that was trying to wrench itself right out of his gut every time Potter’s fingers pressed up a little harder, merely shook his head.

And then Potter was slowly, agonizingly, pulling the sodden material aside, and he was _touching_ Draco’s pussy, middle finger dipping between the labia and dragging across something that made Draco’s breath catch in his throat and his hands tighten where he was still gripping Potter’s robes. He let out a low moan that he simply couldn’t help, and he could feel Potter smiling against his neck.

“Good?” he whispered.

“Was that … that was …” 

“Your clit, yeah,” Potter said, and dragged his finger across it again, pulling another guttural sound out of Draco. “From what I gather, it’s quite sensitive.”

Draco’s legs felt weak as he stood there against the wall, Potter’s hand working him over slowly and deliberately, two fingers now gliding slick through his pussy lips, gathering the wetness and spreading it so that there was no friction at all, just the slippery movement of warm fingers. Each time the longest finger brushed teasingly across Draco’s hole, his hands clenched their fistfuls of Potter’s robes, and each time he could feel Potter grinning against his skin, pleased with himself.

“Do you want me to get you off, then? Like this?” he said suddenly, voice low and rough in Draco’s ear, creating goose bumps. “Or do you think … I could return that favour now?” 

A pulse of dizzy arousal made Draco’s head throb; he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and he could feel his pulse in his fingers. Potter’s breath was unbearably hot on his neck, making it difficult to think, but then, maybe it was okay, just for a moment, just for right now, to let someone else do the thinking — maybe, inside this little bubble, where it was just him and Potter and _this_ , whatever _this_ was, burning between them, it was possible to stop thinking for a little while. Maybe, for the first time in his life, it was okay to let himself _feel_ something instead. And not just feel it, but drown in it — jump in with two feet, the way Potter did.

He hadn’t realized he’d delved so deeply into his thoughts until he blinked and saw that Potter was watching him curiously, his hand having stalled its movements. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asked when Draco’s eyes landed on his, thick eyebrows knitted together above the bridge of his nose, behind those ridiculous glasses.

Draco shook his head. “I was trying to talk myself into _not_ thinking, actually,” he said, and the way Potter grinned made something warm flare in Draco’s chest. 

“Come here,” Potter said, removing his hand from Draco’s knickers and pulling him over towards one of the desks, where he gestured very clearly for Draco to hop up on it. Letting out a long breath, he decided to ignore everything going on in his head, and instead listen to what his body was telling him. He climbed up, cheeks pink with embarrassment, and while he knew well what Potter was going to do, he couldn’t help closing his legs. It seemed so …  _lewd_. But Potter had pulled a chair over, sat down in it, _took off his glasses_ , and no sooner was he in front of Draco than he was gently pulling his legs apart, green eyes — no longer hidden behind those stupid glasses — bright with a promise that was as filthy as it was comforting.

He was trembling — with anticipation, and nerves, and lust, and _impatience_ — when Potter gripped his thighs and pulled him closer to the edge of the desk. Instead of pulling the knickers aside, he now hooked his fingers in the waistband and dragged them slowly and carefully down Draco’s legs. The air was cool on his pussy, glistening wet where Potter had spread his juices around, and Draco whimpered when he felt Potter’s hot breath on the inside of his thigh. Tentatively, he let himself push his fingers through Potter’s hair, watching with utter fascination as his mouth sucked bruising kisses into Draco’s skin, taking his time, letting the fire in Draco’s belly build, until it was all Draco could do not to moan pitifully, right out loud, the moment he finally felt the slick heat of Potter’s tongue delve between his pussy lips and lick a fat stripe up to his clit.

His body jerked, unprepared for the enormity of the sensation, and in response, Potter’s grip on his thighs tightened. Draco could have passed out for sheer overwhelming arousal. 

“P-Potter, that’s — oh, _shit_ ,” his voice rose to a high, breathy pitch, hips twitching involuntarily when Potter’s lips closed around his clit and sucked. His fingers dug into Potter’s head, grounding himself, feeling quite as though his body had caught on fire. He’d had his cock sucked, of course, but this was …  _different_. Maybe it was because he’d never experienced pleasure such as this in a woman’s body before, but Draco could have sworn the tension building in his gut was so much deeper, so much more tightly-wound, than he ever remembered it being before. Not even when Potter had rutted against him in his bed had the orgasm seemed to approach from such a deep place inside of himself.

He couldn’t have said whether whatever Potter was doing was proper form, for he had nothing to compare it to, but Draco didn’t need a reference point to know that tongue was relentlessly good. He alternated sucking Draco’s clit into his mouth with tonguing gently, teasingly around it, spending a lot of time laving over his labia, which were now swollen with blood, much the same as his stiff, throbbing clit. He could feel his _heartbeat_ there, a maddening pulse that made him want to take fistfuls of Potter’s hair and force him to stay put, suck on Draco’s clit until he couldn’t stand it anymore, until he either came or blacked out from the intensity of the whole thing. 

And then, quite unexpectedly, the tip of Potter’s tongue probed gently at Draco’s hole, and Draco’s head fell back, a guttural moan coming out of his mouth unbidden. There was a part of him which was terrified of acknowledging that small, secret place inside his body that not even he had explored, but that hesitance and anxiety was overpowered so thoroughly by this awakened hunger inside of himself that all he could do was give into Potter’s ministrations, to the hands gripping his thighs, to the unbearable pleasure reaching from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes. He was hyperaware of the way his breasts moved with each shallow breath, even more aware of the way his nipples had become sensitive, and he could feel them rubbing against the inside of his bra.

The light probing continued, interrupted here and there when Potter drifted back to his clit to circle it with his tongue before returning to his hole. It kept Draco on the very edge of bliss, panting hotly, sweaty hands tight in Potter’s hair, fairly _writhing_ on the desk; and when suddenly it wasn’t just the tip anymore, when suddenly that slick muscle was pushing _into_ Draco, breaching his hole and just barely stretching him around Potter’s tongue, he had absolutely no control over the way his legs clamped shut on Potter’s head and his spine arched impossibly under an eruption of pleasure so unfathomable that it seemed to have been wrenched straight out of his gut. His body convulsed, and Potter worked his tongue through the whole thing, fingers digging bruises into Draco’s thighs, wringing every last ounce of exquisite release from Draco’s trembling body until there was hardly enough strength left in him to continue sitting upright. He was left shivering with the aftershocks, body thrumming like he’d been struck by lightning. 

Potter flipped Draco’s skirt back down and stood up from his chair, an annoyingly pleased grin on his face, mouth glistening obscenely. He skimmed his nose along Draco’s jaw, breathing hot against his neck, and for a few long minutes he didn’t say anything at all while Draco came down from his high. He dragged his lips in idle patterns across Draco’s skin, and when Draco’s breathing had returned to a semi-normal level, he kissed the corner of his mouth. Draco felt he could have died right then and been pretty much all right with that.

“Was that okay?” Potter whispered eventually, and something in his voice sounded just this side of unsure. It was so typical Potter that Draco could do nothing but laugh weakly.

“You’re a goddamned bloody nuisance, Potter,” Draco rasped. It earned a brilliant smile from Potter, who seemed to have heard the affection in Draco’s words. And now he kissed him properly, and Draco tasted his own essence there. When they parted again he looked down, and it wasn’t without an appreciative groan that he saw, through the opening in the front of his school robes, Potter’s erection tenting his jeans.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?” Potter said cheekily; Draco took great relish in wiping that smirk off his face when he reached forward to cup that tantalizingly obvious bulge in one hand, earning a groan for his efforts. Potter didn’t stop him when he unzipped the denims and pulled his cock out, wasting very little time gathering up enough pre-come to make his hand glide smoothly along the shaft, another prickle of heat stirring in Draco’s belly when he felt the way it was throbbing. “ _Fuck_ , Malfoy …”

“In your dreams, Potter,” Draco taunted, leaning forward in order to breathe it into his ear. Potter groaned again, green eyes falling out of sight behind closed lids as Draco stroked him at a maddeningly slow pace, squeezing over the head on every pass. Potter’s stubbly cheek was scratchy against Draco’s own smooth one, and he turned his head just enough that he could press his lips to that rough texture instead, following it down to Potter’s neck and sinking his teeth in at the place where he could feel a pulse fluttering beneath the skin, as delicate as the wings of a Snitch. Potter hissed and his hands squeezed hard where they’d landed on Draco’s thighs again, still spread open with Potter standing between them.

“Bastard,” Potter ground out, his hips starting to move, fucking into Draco’s fist, and Draco couldn’t decide whether he wanted to watch Potter’s face more or his thick cock, pushing into his hand, pulling out, and pressing back in again with the filthiest squelching noises. It was impossible not to imagine it pressing into his arse instead, or — Draco shuddered, though it was not, as he’d expected, with revulsion — his pussy.

In the end, Draco had his eyes resolutely fixed on Potter’s prick when it started pulsing, and a moment later thick spurts of come were splattering his hand, and Potter muffled his shout of release into Draco’s neck. His hips kept moving for several seconds, and Draco worked him through it, heart pounding at the sight. He was panting heavily when he finally stopped, and when he looked up, and Draco was suddenly mere inches away from all that startling green, he felt for a moment that he couldn’t breathe properly. 

After a minute, because he could think of nothing to say, and because that probing look in Potter's eyes was too intense, Draco pulled his wand out of his robes and muttered, “ _Scourgify,_ ” cleaning them both of Potter’s mess, and the one Draco had left on Potter’s face. Potter tucked himself back into his jeans and did them back up, then grabbed for his glasses.

“I feel like I’m bloody sixteen,” he said, startling Draco into a laugh. “Skipping lessons to have one off in an empty classroom. That was way better than Divination would have been, mind you.” 

Draco rolled his eyes, pleased by the way the comment had utterly cleared away any initial tension or awkwardness. “What a stupid subject,” he drawled, juxtaposing this haughty statement against a move to pull his knickers back to rights. He hopped off the desk and flattened the front of his skirt, then closed up his robes. “My father always says —” He broke off, eyes widening at the words that had so naturally come tumbling right out of his mouth. He looked around at Potter, and found that he had a closed-off expression on his face. “Er — I never thought it sounded very useful,” he amended lamely. Draco felt certain Potter would make a comment, but he didn’t.

“Hermione agrees with you,” he said instead, doing up his own robes and adjusting the watch on his wrist. “Come to that, so do Ron and I, but for some reason we never dropped it. S’pose it’s better than Arithmancy or Ancient Runes, though.”

“Arithmancy is a _fascinating_ class, Potter. There’s a precision in the magic of numbers you’ll never find in a flimsy subject like Divination.”

Curiously, Potter smiled at this and shook his head.

“Believe me when I say I’ve heard a version or three of this argument before.” He picked up his Invisibility Cloak and went to stand in front of Draco, eyes soft back behind those uncompromisingly circular frames. “That really _was_ okay, right?” he said, tone becoming soft. 

Draco thought about making a snarky comment, and then decided he didn’t much feel like it. Instead, in a low-pitched voice, he said, “It was more than okay, Potter.”

When Potter kissed him this time, there was something unspoken within it that Draco felt on an instinctive level. It was something that hadn’t been there before.

“Brilliant.” A grin lit up his face, washing away any evidence of that intangible something. “I s’pose we should get a move on, then. Lessons are bound to be finished soon and I’ve got Transfiguration next.”

Potter grabbed his bag and Draco lifted his own over his shoulder, annoyed with himself for wondering already the next time they’d see each other, and if he’d have to wait until Wednesday.

Wondering, too, what he’d sensed within that last kiss, and if Potter wasn’t telling him something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	16. Chapter 16

Ron approached him Saturday morning, just after breakfast and before all the eligible students lined up to go to Hogsmeade.

In truth, Harry had suspected he’d have to be the one to initiate a conversation. It wasn’t as though he planned to stay in a fight with Ron forever. And although he knew Ron had his own extremely valid reasons for being upset, Harry couldn’t help feeling like his best mate had done him a disservice by blowing up before giving him a chance to explain. 

Harry  _knew_ how it looked, how it sounded — him, falling for Draco Malfoy. If he’d been in Ron’s position, he thought he’d probably have reacted similarly. But did that mean he wasn’t deserving of an opportunity to talk it through?

Incidentally, in spite of Ron’s yelling, in spite of everything he’d spoken to Ginny about, and everything he’d told Hermione and had been telling  _himself_ , it had been a small comment Malfoy had made on Friday, in that empty classroom, that had finally brought Harry around to a rather startling realization: he  _was_ starting to forget. And suddenly whatever defence he might have used seemed rather unsteady. 

Just before they’d parted ways, the words “ _My father always says”_ had fallen all too naturally from Malfoy’s lips before he’d caught himself and flushed all the way to his ears. Part of Harry had felt bad, knowing the way Malfoy ached over his dad — but in the middle of that, sitting like an evil little seed of doubt amidst his genuine concern for Draco, there had been a tiny, impossible-to-ignore pit of irritation and disgust which had formed immediately upon hearing those words in that contemptuous tone of voice. And suddenly he’d looked at Malfoy, just for a moment, and seen not just the boy (in a very pretty girl’s body) with whom Harry had rapidly become infatuated lately, but  _Malfoy_ —sneering, drawling, pointy-faced, cold-hearted, ill-intentioned, wait-until-my-father-hears-about-this, Draco Malfoy.

The very confusing thing was that Harry hadn’t been lying when he’d said he could never forget that it was Malfoy inside that girl’s body. Nobody but Malfoy could make his blood boil the way it did when he was with the blond, could take his emotions and inflate them to such impossible heights. No, he could  _never_  forget it was Draco Malfoy under there. What he apparently  _could_ begin to forget, however, was the intensity of the hatred he’d once felt, and it was not without a bout of nausea and anxiety that he recognized something unsettling: learning that there was another side to Malfoy he’d never seen before, one that he very much liked, did not negate the side he’d known about for seven years, and very much did  _not_ like. You could flip a dirty coin and find it shining on the other side, after all, but when you turned it back around, the dirt would still be there.

These thoughts had kept Harry up nearly the entire night, wondering whether he was fooling himself, being willfully blind, falling victim to his emotions. In the dark, it was easy to succumb to his doubts and his fears. But as soon as the pale light of morning had begun creeping over the hills surrounding Hogwarts castle, Harry had resolved to stop thinking that way.

He  _knew_ who Malfoy was. He’d known this whole time. He simply hadn’t heard Malfoy use that snobbish tone of voice or sound that infuriatingly haughty and obnoxious since they were sixteen years old, and it had startled him.

And besides, didn’t it mean something that Malfoy had caught himself mid-sentence and broken off? Didn’t it count that he’d looked embarrassed, like he’d known what it sounded like?

Didn’t it count that he’d accidentally admitted, so many weeks ago now, that he didn’t feel he deserved Harry’s forgiveness?

It had to. It  _had_ to count, because this thing between them, it was too real.

It was too heart-wrenchingly, achingly  _good_  to be bad.

These perplexing thoughts had Harry in a contemplative and slightly somber mood when Ron pulled him aside Saturday morning in the Gryffindor common room. 

“I owe you an apology,” was the first thing out of Ron’s mouth, and Harry looked at him like he’d sprouted an extra pair of ears. 

“Ron, you don’t —” 

“I’m not taking back what I said,” Ron cut him off, determined, apparently, to have his say. “I’m not saying I’ve changed my mind, or how I feel about this weird thing you’ve got for Malfoy. But … whatever my opinion is, it doesn’t mean I can walk away from you, Harry. I did it to you when we were fourteen, and I did it to you last year, and when I came back I told you I’d never do it again. But I almost did, and … I’m sorry for that.”

An enormous swell of affection for Ron filled Harry’s chest, throwing into sharp relief his painful feelings regarding Malfoy at the moment. 

“Ron,” he said, chuckling softly and placing a hand on Ron’s shoulder, “we’re not on the hunt for Horcruxes, mate. All we did was have a row … you didn’t walk away from me. I didn’t think you had. And I get it — why you’re angry. But I’d like to talk to you about it, if we can, instead of yelling.”  

Ron nodded vigorously. “Course we can. Think you might want to chat over a drink at The Three Broomsticks? Hermione’s said she’s not going today, got too much studying she wants to do.” Ron’s eye roll made Harry feel like they were right back in the old days, and it tugged a genuine laugh out of him that felt immeasurably good.

“Yeah, that sounds fine. I’ll grab my cloak and meet you outside the portrait hole.”

Ron seemed like he wanted to say something else, but apparently decided not to, because he nodded again and then went to wait for Harry out in the corridor. Harry dashed up the stairs two at a time, snagged his regular cloak as well as a scarf and a pair of gloves, and then headed back down only to be impeded by Hermione at the foot of the stairs.

“Ron says you’re going to Hogsmeade together,” she said brightly.

“We are. He apologized — did he tell you that?” 

“No, but he had told me earlier that he was going to.” She looked positively besotted by this, and Harry smiled knowingly, prompting a flush to color her cheeks. “Oh,  _stop_. I’m proud of him. Aren’t you?” 

“He didn’t need to apologize, Hermione.” 

“He did,” she said, nodding decisively. “For himself, he did. He feels he let you down. I would join you two, but I really do have a mountain of work to get through. I  _did_ want to ask you, though …” She trailed off, a decidedly coy smile growing on her face. “Ron said you weren’t in Divination yesterday.” 

She didn’t need to ask the question. Harry’s cheeks burned and he let out a laugh of resignation. He shouldn’t have been surprised, really.

“Yes,” he said, eyebrow raised, highly amused. “I  _was_  with him, if that’s what you’re grinning about.”

“I’m not  _grinning_ about anything, I just think it’s very …” Her lips pressed together and her shoulders lifted in a shrug, like she was searching for a good word, but seemed to come up short. “I don’t know, I suppose it’s just rather fascinating in a way. Who ever would have guessed you’d be missing a class to see Malfoy? Mind you, Harry,” she said, switching gears to mother-hen-Hermione so fast Harry felt a bit winded by it, “I don’t want to hear about you skipping anymore classes, do you hear me? These are our  _N.E.W.T.s_ , I don’t think I need to remind you. And I don’t care if you’ve got offers from sixteen different Quidditch teams and a hundred different Departments at the Ministry, you  _are_ going to put effort into graduating with good marks.”

Holding his hands up in a gesture of supplication, he let out a short bark of laughter. “Swear on my broomstick, Hermione, I plan to do well, and I won’t miss anymore lessons.”

Suddenly the portrait of the Fat Lady swung open and Ron was sticking his head through.

“Oi! What’s the hold up?” he shouted upon seeing Harry and Hermione talking at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

“Have fun,” said Hermione. “Bring me back a couple sugar quills, would you?”

“You got it,” said Harry, squeezing her hand and then heading off towards Ron.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After stopping to buy sugar quills for Hermione, Harry and Ron went into The Three Broomsticks and ordered not two Butterbeers, but two tumblers filled three-quarters of the way with Ogden’s Old Firewhisky. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t had a drink or two before — not with Seamus as a roommate — but it  _was_ the first time they’d ever ordered alcohol at a pub, and Harry and Ron both grinned rather stupidly as they carried them back to a table. With November drawing to a close, Christmas decorations had gone up, and several large, ornamented trees dotted the room, sparkling festively. 

“So,” said Ron, taking a large gulp of his firewhisky and, after grimacing and shaking his head like a dog, set it down on the table. “Er — Malfoy, then.”

Harry poured half of his glass down his throat, grimaced similarly, and made an on-the-spot decision to be nothing but truthful with Ron.

“Malfoy,” he agreed. He couldn’t help a sudden, exasperated grin, thinking of the times they’d sat in this pub  _complaining_  about Malfoy. “I’ll tell you something, Ron … if you think  _you’re_ confused …” 

Ron nodded in a way that seemed uncharacteristically understanding. It could have been an effort to prove to Harry that he was trying to be sympathetic, but Harry didn’t think so. In fact, the look on Ron’s face was startlingly genuine.

“How did it, er, you know … start? Hermione told me you’d said it had something to do with that one Defence class … the one where Seamus let off a green flash, and you scarpered from the room. Me and Hermione went to try and find you, you know, but we didn’t know where you’d got off to … she said Malfoy found you, though.” 

Harry nodded. “He talked me down from a panic attack,” he said softly. Ron looked uncomfortable about this knowledge and stared down at his glass of whisky. “That wasn’t the first time I’d been, you know, attracted to him, though … it was just, er, the first time I kissed him.” 

And just as he’d taken Hermione through the little progressions of his and Malfoy’s strange relationship, so too did he explain it to Ron, everything he could remember, the fights, and the stolen kisses; the yelling, the hitting, the name-calling; and finally, sparing Ron any unnecessary detailed descriptions, the more tender moments — showing Malfoy the Map, and taking him down to the Chamber of Secrets on a broomstick Malfoy was terrified of. Sleeping in his bed, because Malfoy had so timidly asked him to stay. 

And while a good deal of all this made Ron looked immensely uncomfortable, he never scoffed, never snapped, never even interrupted Harry once, but instead seemed intent on taking it all in and processing the information in his own way, looking a bit green but nevertheless okay. When Harry ended with the story of why he’d missed Divination (excluding a description of the way he’d eaten Malfoy out on a desk), it was with trepidation that he brought up Malfoy’s slip-up which had left Harry sleepless last night.

“For just a second, I wanted to _hit_ him. You know? Everything came flooding back for a minute, like it was the old days and we hated each other. But he looked  _embarrassed_ by it, like he knew the way it sounded, so I … I don’t bloody know anymore.” Harry tilted the rest of his drink down his throat. “And he  _won’t_ talk about it. He’s told me loads of stuff about what he’s going through with this hex and all — which, I mean, that  _is_ what I offered to listen to him talk about in the first place, in all fairness — but he won’t talk about the past, and he certainly won’t talk about  _us_. Closest he’s come was telling me he likes me. And  _that_ wasm…” 

“A big step,” Ron said rather croakily, speaking for the first time in a while. Harry nodded, smiling a little. It felt good —  _more_ than good — to be back on the same page as Ron. However wonderful Malfoy might make Harry feel sometimes, he knew he’d never have been able to enjoy it fully if it meant losing Ron in the process. It was relief like a great, gasping breath of fresh air. “What do you mean, he won’t talk about the past?” 

Harry fiddled with his empty tumbler, unsure how to broach the very topic which had sent him and Ron into a tailspin of emotion last week. Ron, however, seemed to sense this, because he said, “I’ll go get us refills, shall I?” Harry shot him a weak smile and watched him go back to the bar, where he ordered the drinks without once ogling Madam Rosmerta, something he’d been wont to do back in the day. This observation gave Harry a curiously mingled sense of fierce jealousy and exquisite happiness. Ron and Hermione’s relationship was blossoming so beautifully, and some part of Harry missed having that — a steady relationship, something easy and fun and treacly-sweet.

Malfoy, of course, was none of those things.

When Ron came back, he handed Harry his second firewhisky, slid into his side of the booth, and swallowed a mouthful of his own. Harry mirrored him, steeling himself.

“Right,” he said. “Well, er — you know how you said you don’t think Malfoy deserves to be forgiven?”

Ron flushed, but all he did was nod.

“Malfoy doesn’t think so, either.”

There was a drawn-out silence where Ron seemed utterly taken aback and unable to speak, and when he finally did, he said rather carefully, “And you’re … you’re sure he wasn’t just saying what he thought you wanted to hear?” 

Harry shook his head. “No,” he said firmly; with all the questions driving him to the brink of madness lately, this was one thing Harry was absolutely sure about. “He was too embarrassed he’d said it, like it had slipped out. And he wouldn’t talk about it when I tried to bring it up again.” Another sip of firewhisky, another shake of his head, another gritting of his teeth. “Anyway … I can’t see how he and I will ever  _really_ move past all our old shit if he won’t talk to me about it. If he won’t  _let_ me forgive him.”

After a couple seconds where Ron traced a finger around the rim of his tumbler and seemed to be working himself up to something, he finally said, “Do you remember the Mirror of Erised?”

Harry was so thrown by this seeming non-sequitur that all he could do was nod.

“You were completely obsessed with going back there every night,” Ron went on. “I’ve known you since we were eleven. I’ve known you since the first time you were able to start making decisions for yourself, rather than the Dursleys making them for you. When you want something, Harry … I’ve never met anybody who pursues the things they want the way you do. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but you get obsessed with things pretty quickly. When you decide somebody or something means a lot to you, I mean … it’s just like a switch, isn’t it? The things you get obsessed with become your whole world for a little while. Sirius, Ginny, the Half-Blood Prince’s book,  _Malfoy_ sixth year. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way you are. My point is that most people aren’t like that …  _especially_ not Malfoy, I’m willing to bet. Dad told me once, when I was complaining to him about Malfoy one summer, that a bully like that has to shut themselves down in order to hurt people so badly. He said Malfoy was probably really … emotionally clogged up, you know?”

Harry’s throat felt tight; his hands were wrapped bruisingly around his glass, but he hadn’t lifted it from the table since Ron had begun talking. He hadn’t expected this — something that would touch him so deeply, in such a heavy way. Something that would make him  _think_ the way he was doing now. 

“So, er — I guess what I’m saying is … give it some time. Give …  _him_ some time. You know? You said he told you he likes you, right? I’m sure he does, then. But it’s  _Malfoy,_ Harry. I know you said you haven’t forgotten that, but … well …” 

“No, you were right,” Harry said, letting out a deep sigh. “About all of that. You were absolutely right, I  _was_ starting to forget. And I  _do_ get like that … obsessive.”

“And stubborn,” Ron added helpfully. Harry rolled his eyes, but his lips found a smile regardless. “And completely self-righteous —”

“All right!” Harry shouted, but Ron was laughing. 

“And according to Trelawney in that lesson you missed, you’re also a Leo, which means you're rubbish at communication.” 

“You know, I think she got something right for once, the old bag,” Harry said, lifting his drink in a toast. Ron grinned.

“I’ll drink to that, mate.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They came to a tacit agreement not to talk about Malfoy anymore the rest of the afternoon. It felt too good to be back on speaking terms, and it seemed neither wanted to drag out an uncomfortable topic when the prospect of an enjoyable afternoon in Hogsmeade was ahead of them.

Tipsy from their two glasses of whisky each, Harry and Ron left The Three Broomsticks grinning loosely, Ron dissolving back into bouts of raucous laughter every couple of minutes over a comparison Harry had made between an old wizard sitting near them and a grindylow.

Because Zonko’s was no longer around — never having reopened after the end of the war — Harry and Ron wandered in and out of some of the shops they’d never spent much time in before: Dervish & Banges and Scrivenshaft’s, as well as a small store called Kirschkorn’s Keepsakes. In the latter Harry found something which piqued his interest — it was a very small, very delicate-looking golden Snitch (made of real gold) on a fine silver chain, with real silver wings that, according to the little description in front of its glass case, fluttered realistically when it was touched. According to a salesperson — to whom Harry was extremely grateful, given the way she didn’t make a big deal upon clearly spotting the scar on his forehead — it was behind glass because, like a real Snitch, it would recognize the first person to touch it, and its wings would only move for them. Harry had never been one for jewelry, but something about the miniature Snitch with its delicate, enchanted wings captivated him, and — trying internally not to acknowledge for whom he knew deep down he was buying it — he paid at the counter and watched as the sales girl wrapped it up neatly in a box.

He’d done this while Ron was still browsing another part of the store, unwilling to explain why he’d just spent twelve Galleons on something he’d never wear. The box was shoved deep into a pocket within his cloak, and when they left the store fifteen minutes later, Ron was none the wiser. 

Scarves refastened around their necks and cloaks done up to the last button, Ron convinced Harry to stop at Honeydukes one last time before they left so he could buy a couple Chocolate Frogs, and it was as they were heading towards the road which would lead them back to Hogwarts that Harry’s eyes landed magnetically on a familiar blond head of hair coming out of Gladrags. Malfoy didn’t appear to notice Harry; he was walking beside Pansy Parkinson, wrapped up in a Slytherin-green scarf, what appeared to be dragon-hide gloves, and a set of earmuffs that matched the scarf. Harry quelled a nearly-overwhelming urge to go over there and cup his cheeks, pink from the cold, and kiss him breathless; even worse, to grab one of those leather-clad hands and walk down Hogsmeade’s High Street like one of those stupid, lovesick couples Harry sometimes saw wandering out of Madam Puddifoot’s.

“Harry,” Ron’s voice drifted across Harry’s consciousness as if from far away. After several more moments where Malfoy finally realized Harry was staring and they simply looked at each other, he finally tore his gaze away, something achy and longing in his chest. 

“Sorry,” Harry said abruptly, shaking his head and breathing in deeply of the crisp autumn air. It was getting colder every day — he expected it would snow soon, probably before December was even upon them. They continued on, though Ron had adopted a contemplative expression Harry couldn’t read.

They were halfway back to the castle when Ron spoke again: “Harry, can I ask you something?” 

Knowing it would have something to do with Malfoy but not  _what_ , specifically, Harry nodded tentatively. 

“What d’you like about him? I mean, I could give you a dozen and a half reasons I like Hermione right off the top of my head, y’know? Do you … I mean, do you  _know_ why you like him?” 

Upon first hearing it, the question sounded, frankly, stupid. After a couple seconds, however, it occurred to Harry that he hadn’t really thought about it himself, not  _really_. He stuffed his hands into the outer pockets of his cloak and chewed thoughtfully on his lip while he rifled through his mind, finding, to his surprise, that things  _did_ leap out at him immediately.

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” Harry asked carefully, raising an uncertain eyebrow at Ron.

“I’m your best mate, Harry,” Ron said bracingly, and he even clapped Harry on the back with a grin. “Even if I don’t wanna hear it, it’s my duty to hear it anyway.”

Harry laughed. He had the strangest feeling that statement would have melted Hermione’s heart.

“Go on, then,” he urged, with an air of mock resignation. 

So Harry did.

“He’s dead clever,” he said, smiling even as it came out of his mouth. “It’s because he’s so …  _perceptive_ , you know what I mean? I suppose the word to use would be cunning, actually. You can’t get fuck all past him, he picks up on things right away.”

“Sounds like Hermione,” Ron muttered under his breath. Harry thought this particular comment might have had something to do with Hermione’s confiscation of a couple Puking Pastilles he’d been hiding in his pockets the other day. 

“And he’s really witty,” Harry went on. “When it’s not being directed at you, you start to realize some of the things he says are actually quite funny. The best thing, though, I guess, is just … this way he has of being so cold and arrogant and unfeeling for the world, but lately, when it’s just us, when it’s just  _me_ …” He trailed off, smiling wistfully. “He’s letting me see a little bit of what’s underneath all that. And it’s really …  _vulnerable_ , and soft.”

Ron’s face looked a bit off-color, but Harry was pleasantly surprised to see a lack of judgment there.

“Malfoy?” he said slowly, glancing at Harry with an expression of hesitant disbelief. “ _Soft?_ Nothing about Malfoy seems very soft, Harry. Well, you know, besides his new tits, I s’pose —” 

Harry was startled into a bark of laughter that he fought hard to suppress, because  _really_ … 

“Ron,” he dead-panned, but Ron was still chuckling, and it was very hard for Harry to feel angry with him when he’d missed this banter so much the past week. “You asked me what I liked about him, that’s my answer. Not that his tits  _aren’t_  soft, but that wasn’t my point.” 

Ron gaped at him. Harry laughed again, and this time he enjoyed the full extent of it.

“Merlin’s saggy bollocks, Harry,” he groaned. “Are you … are you really  _shagging_ him, then?” 

Looking briefly around them and making certain the winding road back to the school was clear of stragglers who might overhear, Harry finally looked back at Ron and shrugged.

“Not properly,” he said. “It’s still a new body, I don’t think he’s ready yet for —”

“Okay, okay, okay!” Ron held his hands up in surrender, shuddering a bit and prompting another hearty laugh from Harry. “Spare me the details, all I needed was a yes or no.” 

“It’s not as simple as that.”

Ron rolled his eyes and pulled his hat further down over his ears. “Nothing between you and Malfoy was ever  _going_ to be that simple, was it?”

And Harry, who had been struck peculiarly by that statement, thought Ron made quite a good point.

 

 

* * *

 

 

November turned into December, and with it the students of Hogwarts saw winter’s first snowfall. 

Draco had not made all that much progress with his Patronus — he couldn’t seem to muster up the extra  _something_ he needed to produce anything corporeal, and although Potter was very encouraging, a sneaking sense of doubt had begun to cloud Draco’s mind.

Maybe, he thought miserably, it wasn’t just that the magic was too advanced;  _maybe_ it had something to do with  _him_. With the Dark Mark marring his skin. The number of times he’d cast the Cruciatus Curse on innocent victims at the Dark Lord’s command.

Maybe something so pure, so inherently good, was not meant to be produced by someone who was so tainted by evil.

He hadn’t mentioned this to Potter. Nor did he plan to.

Despite his draining enthusiasm for learning to cast a proper Patronus, Draco still looked forward to Wednesday nights more than any other night of the week. There was a part of him which he thought might never quite get used to his eagerness for Potter’s company, but for the most part, he’d begun allowing himself to simply enjoy it. 

Since the day Potter had eaten him out, the most they did was steal quick kisses when they got the chance, and on Wednesday nights spent long hours snogging one another breathless in the empty classroom. Potter was being unbearably gentlemanly about the whole thing, never pushing for more, always letting Draco lead the pace. 

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t enjoyed Potter’s mouth on him, because he  _had_. It was just that surrendering over so much of himself that way had been an enormous undertaking, and he simply hadn’t found the courage to do it again yet.

Potter, for his part, had been in a strange mood since the Saturday afternoon when Draco had spotted him and Weasley in Hogsmeade. The most Potter would say on the subject was that he and Weasley had apparently worked things out, neglecting to go into detail about whatever conversation they might have had. The oddest part of all was that Potter had stopped trying to get Draco to open up about anything uncomfortable — still no mention of his wand, not a word about his father, or the war, or the past. No questions about the memory Draco was using for his Patronus. And, blessedly, not even a hint of those dreaded words:  _Why won’t you let me forgive you?_

In fact, Potter’s request that they get to know each other better seemed to have stagnated, and while Draco was cautiously appreciative of the emotional reprieve it afforded him, two weeks of all snogging, and groping, and studying had left him yearning for something a bit more …  _intimate_. 

The chill of the season turned the Slytherin dungeons bitterly cold, and it was with more and more longing that Draco thought of Potter while he was curled up underneath his blankets at night, remembering the time Potter had stayed and slept in his bed, how warm he’d been, how safe Draco had felt being tucked against that solid body.

He’d never given the jumper back, and sometimes — when the darkness was too dark, and the panic was a tight grip on his throat — he’d even wear it and let the fading smell of Potter soothe him to sleep.

It was on the pretense of returning the sweatshirt that Draco asked Potter if he wanted to come by again on a Saturday just two weeks before exams and the start of the holidays. Potter had seemed surprised but agreed with enthusiasm.

At midnight, when Pansy and Blaise had both gone to bed, Draco left the common room for ten minutes only to lead an invisible Harry Potter in behind him when he returned. A few people looked — curious, perhaps, what Draco had been doing out in the rest of the castle at this time of night, but if so, they didn’t ask.

As soon as he whipped off the Cloak inside Draco’s room and Draco saw that Potter was holding a bottle of firewhisky, he scoffed.

“ _Really_ , Potter?” 

Potter shrugged, grinning smugly, and popped off the top only to take a long swig of it.

“It’s the weekend, isn’t it?” He strolled over to Draco’s bed and sat down without being invited, then held the bottle out. Draco pursed his lips. “Oh, c’mon, Malfoy … have a drink. You didn’t ask me here  _just_ to give me the jumper back, did you? You could’ve given it to me any old time when we were in that classroom.”

Cheeks turning red at having been so bluntly called out, he went to sit on the bed as well, much more primly than Potter, and when he took the bottle of firewhisky, it was with great care.

“Is this supposed to turn into a drunken shag, Potter?”

To Draco’s surprise, Potter laughed loudly.

“It  _could_ , but that wasn’t my intention, no. Seamus has loads of bottles stashed away in his trunk he’s saving for the next party in the common room, and I felt like unwinding a bit tonight. I reckon he won’t notice one missing.” 

Knowing how foolish it was to introduce alcohol into his system when he was alone in his bedroom with Potter, Draco took a large gulp anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Only forty-five minutes later, half the bottle was gone and Draco had somehow ended up straddling Potter on his bed, bent forward and kissing those whisky-flavored lips with a breathless, sloppy enthusiasm Potter returned tenfold.

“Ow,” Draco mumbled, rubbing at his cheek where Potter’s glasses had dug into the skin as soon as Potter’s mouth started trailing down his jaw.

“Sorry,” Potter chuckled, and with a bit of maneuvering on Draco’s part, managed to sit up a bit more, so he was leaning back against the headboard, removing his glasses altogether. He reached for the bottle on the bedside table and twisted off the cap, drinking down another mouthful. Draco’s eyes stayed focused on his bobbing Adam’s apple, but when the bottle was lowered again, his gaze strayed to something on Potter’s hand he’d never noticed before. Tiny raised lines gleamed shiny white and more noticeable than usual with the way the hand was wrapped tightly around the firewhisky.

“What’s that?” Draco asked, uninhibited by the alcohol in his veins. Potter, who was tipsy and could not figure out what Draco was looking at, lifted the bottle and squinted at the label.

“What’s what?”

“Not that.” Draco took the bottle, set it aside, and gently reached for Potter’s right hand, turning it palm-down so he could make out the scars he’d glimpsed. Potter seemed to understand almost immediately, head tilting as he looked at them, almost as though he himself had forgotten they were there. 

“I must not tell lies,” he said, and Draco looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “That’s what it says. ‘I must not tell lies.’”

Twisting Potter’s hand a bit, Draco was finally able to make the words out. It sent a jolt of nausea through him.

“Why do you …?” he began, but found he couldn’t finish the sentence. Thankfully, Potter didn’t need him to.

“Umbridge,” he said, shrugging. “She made me use that Black Quill for my detentions with her. Carved this pretty little message into my hand every night for a few weeks. Really excellent times. Still stings a bit, you know, when I talk about her. That’s where pride gets you, eh?”

Draco was glad he was inebriated, because he wasn’t quite sure what to do with this information, nor the blasé way Potter was talking about it. Especially not the fact that he had been instrumental in helping Umbridge catch Potter and his stupid band of heroes. 

“Do you have others?” Draco heard himself saying before he could stop the question from coming out.

“Other what?” Potter asked. He had not moved his hand from Draco’s grip.

“Scars.”

Potter shifted beneath him, a quizzical look in his eyes Draco couldn’t quite read.

“Why?”

Draco looked from the scars on Potter’s hand to the scar on his forehead, and then thought about the faint ones leftover on his own abdomen, courtesy of Golden Boy.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he recited with a shrug. 

Potter’s eyes dropped almost instantly to Draco’s chest.

“I saw you with your shirt off before,” he said, brows dipping. “That last time we were in here. I didn’t see anything.” 

“Too dark,” Draco said simply. “Anyway, you seemed pretty focused on my tits at the time.”

Potter smirked and did not bother denying it. 

“All right,” he said finally, and Draco blinked several times as Potter lifted his shirt over his head and dropped it beside him on the mattress. Draco swallowed hard, greedily taking in the sight of his tanned skin and beautifully Quidditch-toned chest, dusky brown nipples pebbled from the perpetual chill of the dungeon. Until Potter scratched his nails lightly across it, Draco didn’t notice the small, round scar just below his collar bones, a little bit like the burn mark of a cigar. It was so faint it almost might not have been there, and certainly one wouldn’t notice unless it was pointed out. “Remember I told you about the Horcruxes?”

Draco nodded, feeling sick suddenly.

“One of them was a locket. Hermione and I were looking for the Sword of Gryffindor at Bathilda Bagshot's house in Godric's Hollow, but it wound up being a trap. She'd already died, and Voldemort's snake, Nagini, had, like ... possessed her body. I dunno ... it was the single most fucked-up thing I've ever seen in my life, though. Anyway, Nagini let Voldemort know we were there, and I guess the Horcrux must have sensed him or _something_ , because Hermione says it latched itself onto my chest and she couldn't get it off me when I was passed out. Left me with this.”

Draco stared at the mark, horror-stricken. Potter did not give him time to comment.

“These,” he went on, indicating two very small scars on the inside of his forearm, and then twisting it to show identical ones on the other side, “are from the snake. It bit me when it came out of Bathilda's body. Hermione put Dittany on them, but it’s not as good as phoenix tears, of course, so they never healed all the way. I have more here and there, but those are the ones with, er ... exciting stories behind them, let's say.” 

Draco lifted a hand and skimmed his fingers along the terrible scar on Potter’s chest, where a locket with the Dark Lord’s soul inside of it had apparently attempted to choke him to death.

Inevitably, his eyes lifted back to the most famous of Potter’s scars, and he brushed a thumb across it.

“Forgot about this one.” 

“You like that one,” Potter said softly; one of his hands wrapped gently around Draco’s wrist, pulling it away.

“I like  _you_ ,” Draco said in a rare moment of raw and shameless truthfulness.

It was delicate and excruciatingly sweet, the way Potter leaned forward to brush their lips together. Draco let his eyes flutter closed and tried hard to ignore his heart in his throat.

“Can I see yours now?”

Draco nodded, but he didn’t move to take off his shirt. After a moment, Potter did it for him. He dropped his gaze, feeling especially exposed sitting in Potter’s lap with his shirt off and the bright light of several candles on his bedside table making it so there were no shadows to hide behind.

Agonizingly gentle fingers stroked across the jagged line of a faded white scar which stretched from one side of his abdomen to the other, crisscrossing near the end with another, this one shorter but thicker, having been much deeper.

“Draco,” Potter’s voice was gravelly. Draco wished he wouldn’t say his name like that. “I nearly killed you.”

“I was about to torture you, so I guess we’re even.”

Potter spent several more silent minutes tracing his fingers along the scars. Draco watched his face as he did this, noticing every small twitch of muscle beneath the skin; drinking in each and every little nuance, every dip and curve of bone; committing to memory the dark stubble on his cheeks and the way a few strands of untamed black hair fell across his forehead, mostly obscuring the legendary lightning-shaped scar underneath. It was a face which was not pretty or delicate but fiercely handsome, made so not just because of the shape of his bones but because of the war-roughened look about him. The way his heart-stoppingly green eyes always burned with life and the life of those he’d lost. 

The alcohol pounding through Draco’s veins tore down walls, destroyed emotional dams, and rubbed Draco’s nose in the cold hard truth of something he’d been neatly avoiding lately: he didn’t just  _like_ Potter.   

“Draco?”

“Huh?” His voice sounded especially high-pitched and a little bit strangled. He was too tipsy to be embarrassed. Too far gone to be properly mortified by the discovery of how deep his feelings went.

“What are you thinking about?”

He hesitated. Looked back and forth between Potter’s eyes, seeing the little flecks of deeper green this close. Then —

“You.” He paused, then added, “This.” 

“Us, you mean,” Potter said softly. Draco nodded. His throat felt tight. Potter had set the bottle aside again, and now his hands were a steadying weight on Draco’s hips. “Is there an ‘ _us’_ , then?” 

After a moment, Draco said, “No.” Potter didn’t seem surprised by this, nodding as though it was what he’d expected.

“D’you think there could be? One day?”

“I think you’re pissed,” Draco said, shifting a bit on Potter’s lap and letting his hands fall to rest on that bare chest, enjoying the feel of sparse wiry hairs beneath his palms. “Will you stay tonight?”

“You know I will.” Potter’s head was tipped back against the headboard, gazing pensively up at Draco. He wasn’t sure how long they sat that way, Draco drawing idle patterns on Potter’s much-darker skin while those green eyes stayed unwaveringly focused on him. The only sounds were that of their slow, whisky-scented breathing, and the occasional rustle against the sheets when Draco inevitably fidgeted. It was chilly with his shirt off, but Potter’s fingers felt soothing against his skin, and anyway, he was starting not to mind quite so much, being topless around Potter.

A protracted silence was broken when Potter spoke again. 

“That jumper of mine,” he said, still watching Draco thoughtfully. Draco looked up, fingers pausing in a second exploration of Potter’s chest scar. “You wear it sometimes, don’t you?”

Draco blushed fiercely. “No, I don’t!”

Potter lifted an eyebrow and he felt the heat creep down his neck. 

“Why would I wear your ugly jumper, Potter, I have a chest filled with expensive silk pyjamas at my disposal!” 

Potter was chuckling, and there was a look on his face that could only be described as adoring. Draco scowled.

“I dunno,” he said, using his leverage on Draco’s waist to tug him a bit closer. “It’s just, you’re very organized and on top of things usually, so I don’t think you’ve been forgetting to give it back to me. But if you  _have_ , you know, been wearing it at night, you can keep it. I don’t mind.” 

Draco opened his mouth to protest, only to find that he couldn’t quite get the words past a lump in his throat.

“Maybe I’ll steal a pair of your knickers or something —”

Draco swatted his arm with a scoff of indignation, and Potter, laughing loudly, ducked away from another blow.

“You great bloody pervert,” he admonished, but when he went to hit Potter again, his wrist was grabbed neatly in mid-air, and another hand on the back of his neck pulled him forward into a kiss. He fought it at first, on principle more than anything else, but Potter’s lips were soft and insistent, and soon Draco was opening his mouth for him, toes curling at the first touch of their tongues. “I really hate you,” he mumbled after a minute, the fingers of his free hand skimming gently down Potter’s cheek.

“No you don’t,” Potter said quietly, dropping a kiss to the corner of Draco’s mouth. Draco was not at all prepared for the way this audacious statement made his stomach jolt sharply. He didn’t deny it; instead he gave Potter a last searching look before leaning over to blow out the candles on his bedside table. He climbed off of Potter with the intention of grabbing his wand to extinguish the oil lamp on his desk, but before he could even get his fingers around it, Potter muttered something and the room went dark. Draco whipped around to look at Potter’s hand, which was, as he’d suspected, empty. 

“Did you just do  _wandless_ magic?” he asked, unable to contain the note of awe in his voice. Something that felt very much like arousal prickled in his lower belly.

“Maybe,” said Potter, grinning at Draco through the heavy darkness.

“God, you’re  _infuriating_ ,” said Draco. He heard Potter chuckling as they both crawled under the duvet, Draco without bothering to grab his shirt. Potter was instantly hovering above him, one hand next to Draco’s head, bringing their mouths together wetly. He allowed himself to be kissed breathless, utterly overwhelmed by how raw and how  _good_ this was, having Potter’s solid, warm presence in his bed, on top of him,  _everywhere_. 

It was sloppy at first — a hard, desperate, panting slide of mouths, teeth nipping and tongues curling slickly around each other; but as the minutes wore on, Draco’s fingers stroking idly up and down Potter’s sides, their desperation tapered off into a slower rhythm which was mostly lips and tongue, and which pulled quiet, gasping breaths out of Draco every now and then.

“Potter,” Draco whispered. Potter trailed his lips down Draco’s jaw, mumbling a small, distracted “ _Hmm_?” against his skin. His heart pounded. Words danced at the tip of his tongue, careening back and forth, until he finally forced them out: “Do you really think you can forgive me?”

Potter froze in his ministrations. When he pulled back, Draco could see even through the darkness that his eyebrows were knitted together, but he couldn’t make out whatever emotion was flashing in his eyes. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d brought this up, only that here in the darkness, with his brain fuzzy from alcohol, it was easier to broach the subject, and he’d been trying to for some time. 

“I told you before,” Potter said in a deep voice that was scratchy around the edges. “I already  _have_ forgiven you.”

“And you think the things I did  _deserve_  forgiveness?” 

This was a heart-stopping moment, because in truth, Draco had been looking for an answer to this question a long time now, even before Potter so boldly offered it up like it was his to give. It didn’t matter if he  _wanted_ forgiveness, or even if he  _got_ that forgiveness — what mattered was whether or not he deserved it. 

“I don’t know,” Potter said after a beat. Draco tried to turn his head away, utterly mortified, but a hand on his cheek stopped him. “That wasn’t a no. I just don’t think it’s a black-and-white question.” Heaving a sigh that sounded like resignation, Potter dropped onto the bed beside him, flat onto his back, hands folded over his stomach, staring up at the dark ceiling pensively. Draco turned onto his side so he could see Potter’s face. “Sirius told me, Ron, and Hermione once that the world isn’t split into good people and Death Eaters. At the time he was just making the point that, just because Umbridge was a cow, didn’t mean she was a Death Eater. But I think there’s an even bigger point in there somewhere.”

Draco licked his lips, staying silent. Potter turned his head on the pillow and their eyes met.

“You told me yourself I don’t get to decide who’s forgiven, and you were right. I’m not some moral apex. I don’t know if you  _deserve_ to be forgiven. What I do know is that you’re more than just the Mark on your arm, Draco.” Draco lowered his eyes, grateful it was so dark, because his throat was suddenly tight and threatening tears. He wondered if Potter knew just how deeply that comment had touched him. “I’ve told you before … remorse can heal a soul. It’s about  _feeling_ it — that guilt, that heartache. That anguish. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if anyone else decides to forgive you if you haven’t even let yourself feel your own remorse.”

“Feeling things hurts,” Draco whispered. “I hate feeling things.”

“The pain makes us human.” Potter turned onto his side now, slinging an arm across Draco’s waist and pulling him close. He looked sleepy, yet his eyes burned with sincerity. “But, you know, you don’t have to bear it by yourself.” 

As though spurred on by Potter’s words, a great deluge of emotion overwhelmed Draco completely; he buried his face against Potter’s chest, dug his nails into skin, and sobbed.

It was agony. 

It was catharsis like he’d never known it before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	17. Chapter 17

For the rest of the weekend and into the following week, Draco kept even more unusually quiet than he had since the first day he’d returned to lessons after the hex. That night with Potter had felt so monumental, had impacted him so deeply, left him so emotionally stripped and bare, that it seemed strange he hadn’t been marked with some sort of physical evidence of its having happened. But there was nothing—just his puffy red eyes the next morning when he woke up to another note from Potter (“ _Didn’t want to wake you—see you Wednesday night_ ”) and a lingering tightness in his chest. He was half convinced Pansy or Blaise would sense something, but while Blaise did give him a searching look at breakfast, Pansy was so busy prattling on about the holidays that Draco felt convinced she wouldn’t have noticed if he’d been wearing an orange wig. 

On Tuesday, as Draco was leaving Arithmancy and heading to Transfiguration, a voice stopped him in the corridor. He tensed up immediately, but not for the reason he’d become so used to doing—flinching at people harassing him, mostly—but because he recognized the voice so well.

Theo was one of the only other Slytherins in Draco’s year taking N.E.W.T.-level Arithmancy, Tracey Davis being the other. Draco turned stiffly, hand clutching his bag until his knuckles were much whiter than usual. However, upon spotting the boy in question a few feet back, Draco saw he was carrying two copies of _Advanced Theories of Numerology_ and realized at once that he’d left his own back in the classroom.

His face burned hot while he stood there and waited for Theo to catch up, jaw clenched as he reached out and took it slowly, meeting his eyes with reluctance. Other students weaved around them, and neither bothered to move from the middle of the hallway.

“Thank you,” he said tightly, and giving a curt nod after a moment he turned away when nothing else seemed forthcoming. He’d only gotten a few steps when Theo called out again.

“Draco, wait.” He sounded as tentative as Draco felt, and maybe that was what made him stop and turn around a second time. He lifted an eyebrow, hoping his face was effectively conveying an aloofness he didn’t feel. Theo’s expression was difficult to read, and this was all the more noticeable in contrast to Potter, who may as well have written what he was feeling at any given moment on a piece of parchment and charmed it to his forehead. “I wanted to ask…how you were doing,” he said lamely.

Quiet, introverted, and exasperatingly intelligent, Theodore Nott had never been one to stumble over his words, but least of all, to say something so utterly and unbearably _stupid_.

“How I’m doing?” Draco repeated, sneering. Indignation flared to life in his chest. Theo, at least, had the decency to look ashamed. His cheeks colored and he looked away, but he showed no other sign of discomfort. His pure-blood upbringing would have quashed any desire to fidget under scrutiny long ago. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t dignify such utter tosh with an answer.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” Theo said. When he met Draco’s eyes again, he saw that some of the confliction had gone from Theo’s face. “D’you think we could we talk?”

This came as such a shock that Draco was quiet for several moments, studying Theo’s face, looking for something, although he wasn’t sure what. It was extremely unlikely Theo was taking the piss, never having gotten any satisfaction out of that sort of thing, but the possibility that he genuinely wanted to talk to Draco was equally as difficult to believe at the moment.

“We have Transfiguration,” Draco pointed out.

“I know. I mean…later.”

“What is it you want to talk about, Nott?”

Theo frowned at the use of his surname, correctly reading Draco’s irritation.

“A number of things,” he said after a brief silence. “I got a letter from my grandmother today. My father’s receiving the Kiss first of February.”

Draco’s heart seemed to drop all the way to his navel. Theo’s mother had died when they’d been very young; if his father received the Kiss, it would leave him no better off than an orphan. 

Or rather… _when_ he received the Kiss. Because if one thing was certain, it was that Potter would not be making a second trip to the Ministry to fight on the behalf of another Death Eater.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said stiffly. 

“It hasn’t sunk in yet,” Theo said, stuffing his book in his bag and then burying his hands in his pockets. “We knew it was a possibility when they were arrested—our fathers, I mean—but I don’t think I ever really believed it would happen.”

Jaw clenched again, Draco looked away from Theo, feeling all over again the enormity of what Potter had done for him. He knew Theo must have been thinking about it too—it hadn’t been a secret that Lucius Malfoy’s sentence had been overturned thanks to the Chosen One. The part that remained a secret was _why_ he’d done it.

Or rather, for _whom_ he’d done it.

“I hadn’t even been thinking about it when my mother sent me the letter,” Draco said finally, his voice an emotionless monotone. “I guess I hadn’t really believed it would happen, either.” 

And, on cue: “It _didn’t_ happen, though. For you, I mean. Your father.” 

In an uncharacteristic gesture that showcased Draco’s current discomfort, he hugged his Arithmancy textbook against his chest, like he was trying to ward off Theo’s accusatory gaze.

“Is that what you wanted to talk about, then?” he said, and a note of frost had crept into his voice. “My father’s reprieve? Because it _wasn’t_ an acquittal, Nott. He’s still rotting in Azkaban, and by the time the Ministry will even begin to _talk_ about visitation rights for my mother and me, he’ll likely have lost his marbles altogether.”

With the force of a rogue bludger, Draco’s own words hit him spectacularly. He felt suddenly dizzy with the reality of it, his father’s inevitable descent into a lunacy so complete it was unlikely he would recognize Draco even if he _did_ get to see him. A terrible mental picture of his father, sleek blond hair now lank and dirty, curled up like a common criminal in the corner of a dark and desolate cell. It raised the hairs on the back of Draco’s neck and left him with a feeling that his heart had been dipped in ice.

“As I said,” Theo’s voice broke Draco from his miserable reverie. He appeared to have been watching Draco, but if this was the case, he made no comment. “I’d like to talk _later_.”

Draco held his gaze a moment, and finally, with a terse nod of acquiescence, turned on his heel and set off for Transfiguration with Theo behind him, keeping a distance.

Unlike with Potter, it wasn’t difficult to find time to spend with Theo; the Slytherin common room had plenty of nooks and crannies, and with Blaise’s assurance he would keep Pansy from bothering them, Draco and Theo sat down after dinner in a shadowy corner to talk.

Theo was and always had been tall and rather lanky, certainly lacking the physical appeal Draco associated with Potter these days; but there was a darkness about him, and a fierce, intimidating intelligence which had drawn Draco to him in the past. Part of it, Draco supposed, was the quiet mystery—Theo, after all, had never participated in Draco’s vendetta against Potter and his cohorts, had never seemed to feel the need to belong to any sort of group or prove himself in any way.

In any case, he looked every ounce the pure-blood heir the way he sat with one leg crossed over a knee, hands folded in his lap, an ancestral watch loose on his wrist, staring at Draco from beneath a strong brow bone with dark, unreadable eyes. Draco was reminded with a smidge of amusement why he had always reluctantly viewed Theo as his one true equal at school.

“How are you, Draco?” he said quietly. The soft quality of his voice belied his stony countenance.

“There’s no need for pleasantries, Nott,” Draco retorted, crossing one of his own legs and leaning haughtily back in his chair.

“It wasn’t a pleasantry,” said Theo. “We haven’t spoken in a long time. Even before you were…” He gestured vaguely at Draco, whose cheeks took on a telling shade of pink. 

“Turned into a woman?” Draco said snappily. “Yes, I’d noticed. I figured you were intentionally keeping your distance. An association with me won’t help you clear your own name.” 

“No, it won’t,” said Theo bluntly. Draco reluctantly appreciated the forthcoming honesty of it. The shamelessness. Some of his anger melted away, leaving behind a mingled sense of regret and resentment. “You of all people should know it’s nothing personal. You’re one of the only ones around here I’ve ever respected, Draco. I hope it goes without saying that, were it not for the impact it would have on me and my future, I’d have been there for you when that mindless twit, Conway, hexed you.”

Draco said nothing to this at first, merely observed Theo through slightly narrowed eyes, as impressed by this pronouncement as he was resentful of it.

“I bear you no grudge, Theo,” said Draco eventually. Theo relaxed by a merest degree in his seat, and this was enough to make Draco feel as though they were on even footing again. “And I truly am sorry to hear about your father. Please pass my condolences on to your grandmother, what little they might mean.” 

“It means a great deal to _me_ , regardless.” He paused a beat, and then went on, “I don’t expect the same miracle, but I’m curious what prompted Potter to put a word in for your father. You must know why he did it.”

“My mother,” Draco fibbed quickly, thinking of what Potter had said when he’d explained his motivation behind speaking at Narcissa’s trial. “She helped Potter in that forest, just before…the end. I suppose appealing for her would have been useless had he allowed my father to receive the Kiss. My mother would have perished from grief not long after.”

It was a weak excuse, but it would have to do. Theo seemed uncertain whether or not to believe it, but nodded slowly all the same.

“Do you know what happened, then?” Theo said, and at the blank look on Draco’s face, continued, “in the forest, I mean. Did your mother tell you?”

“No. She’s never spoken of it, and as you know, I was not permitted to be in the court room during her trial.” It was strange to think that his mother was the only person other than Potter himself who had been there and was not now either dead or in Azkaban. Outside of the trial, she had neglected to speak a word of what she’d witnessed, even to her own son, and over the summer Potter had been publicly hounded by reporters and journalists asking for the story, which he’d similarly declined. It seemed that unless the transcript from the trial was released, or either his mother or Potter decided to talk, whatever had happened in the Forbidden Forest on the night of 2 May, 1998, would forever remain a mystery to the Wizarding world.

“Do you believe the things they say?” Theo said in a low voice. “That he survived the Killing Curse again?” 

Draco thought back to the panic attack a flash of green light had induced in Potter during that Defense class, and suspected that yes, Potter had indeed done the impossible a second time.

“I don’t know,” he said with an affected unconcernedness. “Does it matter?”

“I suppose it doesn’t.” Theo tilted his head, eyeing Draco contemplatively. “At the end of the day, my father’s still going to have his soul sucked out through his mouth come February.”

“And my father will likely have already gone round the twist by that time. Bully for us.”

A long silence ensued, Theo still watching him, Draco meeting his gaze and wondering what was going on inside that esoteric mind of his.

“Your mother,” he said suddenly, and Draco lifted an eyebrow, “does she know?” His eyes traveled down Draco’s body and back up, prompting an embarrassed flush.

“No,” Draco said tightly.

“Are you staying here for the holidays, then?”

“I’m…not sure,” he said truthfully. “I’ve considered it seriously.”

Correctly reading the look on Draco’s face, Theo said, “Your mother would be devastated.”

“Indeed.” He sighed. “But not nearly as devastated as she’ll be if I get off the train at King’s Cross looking like _this_.”

To Draco’s surprise, Theo smirked, although, to his credit, he appeared to try and suppress the worst of it.

“You do look a great deal like her,” he said, raising an eyebrow and dragging his eyes over Draco’s new body once again. Draco tried hard not to squirm beneath that heavy scrutiny. “Maybe I’m imagining it, but I fancy you can see a bit more of your Black heritage this way, don’t you think? Your dear Auntie Bella would have been pleased.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Theo,” Draco said brusquely, the words having touched a nerve which had been causing him great mental anguish the last three months he’d been in this body. “You do realize that in my ancestors’ eyes, both the Black _and_ Malfoy lineages rest on my shoulders? According to my mother, my blood-tr—er—my cousin Nymphadora had a son before she died in the war.” Cheeks flushed, he knew Theo would be aware he’d been about to say “blood-traitor cousin,” but he didn’t comment on the way Draco had broken off, merely seemed privately interested by the fact. “Don’t know who the father was, but he won’t have been a pure-blood, so their son is as good as a blood-traitor, probably a half-blood, as well, and even if he wasn’t, he would have taken his father’s name, not Black. My grandfather, Cygnus, only had daughters, so the Black name itself died off with my mother's cousins, Regulus and—” 

“Sirius Black,” Theo cut him off smoothly, not bothering to hide his amused grin this time. Draco’s jaw clenched.

“Yes. And that means I am the _last_ pure-blooded descendant, let alone _male_ descendant, left from the entire line of Black to carry it on.” He paused, gazing heatedly at Theo. “And now I’m a woman. So no…I don’t think dear Auntie Bella, or any of my Black ancestry, would have been pleased. Nor especially would my paternal ancestors, seeing as I’m an only child and expected to carry on the Malfoy name.” 

Theo was quiet for several minutes. Finally, when he spoke, it was in a sober voice: “You’re talking as though you believe you’re stuck this way forever.”

A chill, bone-deep, passed through Draco’s body, leaving his skin contracted with goose bumps.

“I try not to think about it.”

“What have the Healers said?”

“Conway claimed _this_ wasn’t what he’d meant to do. Says he thought he was doing some bogus hex he found in a book, but he wouldn’t say which.” Draco rolled his eyes, sinking further back into his chair. “I think he’s telling the truth that it wasn’t what he meant to do, but I think what he _was_ trying to do was likely gruesome and illegal, so he wouldn’t say. Got expelled anyway, which, frankly, I’m rather surprised about, but anyway… Without knowing what the spell was, the Healers have nothing to go on. I stayed at St. Mungo’s the first week, letting them run tests, but it was useless. Nothing came of it.”

Theo raised his eyebrows. “You’re not telling me that’s it, then?” 

“Of course not,” Draco snapped. “There’s a team of specialists working on it.”

“Without you there?”

“I have to graduate, Theo,” he said tightly. “I can’t stay there forever. But if you absolutely _must_ know, a specialist does a diagnostic on me twice a month. It’s not as if I’m not invested in getting this fixed. They’ll find a cure, and in the meantime, I’m finishing my N.E.W.T.s. Anyway, what does it matter to you?” 

Theo shrugged. “S’pose it shouldn’t,” he said. It seemed a peculiar thing to say, but he didn’t elaborate, nor did Draco enquire further. “Well…here’s hoping for miracles, eh?”

Draco got the distinct impression Theo wasn’t only referring to a cure for the hex. 

* * *

 Boothby did indeed stick the Patronus Charm into their exams, but seeing as a good deal of students (with the exception of Potter’s disciples) could not produce anything corporeal, Draco’s shield form was more than enough to earn decent marks.

They didn’t meet Wednesday night, having mutually decided they could use the sleep before more exams on Thursday; they met instead on Friday, in Draco’s room rather than the empty classroom, both mentally drained but satisfied to know it was all over until second term started in January. The next morning the Hogwarts Express would be leaving for King’s Cross to bring an overwhelming majority of students home for the holidays.

Potter had insisted on finishing off the bottle of firewhisky they’d started a couple weeks ago, and Draco had to admit he was quite enjoying himself, spread out on his stomach on his bed, half paying attention to the pages of his own notes he was flipping through, trying to assure himself he’d done well on his exams this week, the other half of his attention on Potter, who was sitting at Draco’s desk with the chair propped back on two legs, looking effortlessly, _irritatingly_ handsome. The bottle of firewhisky was nearly empty where it sat forgotten on the desk beside a bottle of green ink.

Potter, gesticulating wildly, was attempting to articulate a story about an apparently-amusing game of Quidditch he and the Weasleys had once played over the summer at the Weasley household. The look on his face was rapturous, like nothing could possibly have pleased him more than to relive that day—underneath it, however, Draco fancied he could see a bit of wistfulness, a bit of longing, and he thought with a twisting in his gut of the Weasley twin who had died.

“Only reason I like playing Chaser sometimes is you’re more _in_ the game, y’know?” he said, looking over at Draco with eyes that shined with an inebriated enthusiasm. Draco tried very hard not to pay attention to the way his heart seemed to expand right there in his chest at the sight, but found it difficult to ignore. Almost as difficult as it was to ignore his burgeoning awareness of the depth of his feelings for the Gryffindor prat. “But it’s got nothing on catching the Snitch, does it?” His smile became even brighter, as though Draco was the only person in the entire world who might be able to understand his love of Seeking.

“I wouldn’t know, would I?” Draco drawled, lifting a sardonic eyebrow. “Seeing as you always managed to get to it first.”

A look Draco couldn’t decipher came over Potter’s face, yet even without a name its intensity made Draco’s belly squirm with anticipation. The sound of the chair falling back to the floor was loud, and Draco could distinctly feel his heart in his throat as Potter stood and came over to the bed, Draco sitting up from his position on his stomach. Potter looked positively predatory as he moved Draco’s school things and climbed onto the bed, backing Draco up against his own headboard with a lascivious grin. Draco could smell the faint tell of alcohol on his breath, managing only to heighten his arousal. Potter looked sinfully good like this.

His hands were gentle when they landed on Draco’s knees and spread them apart, settling himself between them, and leaning forward to catch Draco’s lips in an excruciatingly deliberate kiss which robbed Draco of his ability to breathe properly. It occurred to him with startling force that, while he was hyperaware of Potter’s presence _right there_ between his thighs, it wasn’t scary or uncomfortable. For one thing, he knew with a gut-deep certainty that Potter, whatever his faults, was about as likely to touch Draco against his will as he was to announce himself the new Dark Lord. For another, despite the intimidating newness of the situation that was still utterly present, he was very much aware of the part of himself which was painfully aroused by Potter’s drunken forwardness, the way he seemed to completely disregard any semblance of propriety or decorum in his palpable lust for contact. The kiss was short but left him panting like they’d been snogging for hours, something which Potter seemed to pick up on, and it put a smug grin on his stupid, handsome face.

“Do you know when catching the Snitch was _most_ satisfying?” he said softly, taking one of Draco’s hands and brushing their fingers together maddeningly, so Draco could feel every callous, every rough patch of skin on Potter’s hand. The pads of his fingers skimmed over Draco’s palm, up the length of each digit, reverent in his exploration. And then, finally twining their fingers together, he leaned forward once more, warm breath ghosting across Draco’s ear. “When I was stealing it right out from under your fingers, Malfoy.” 

“You’re a cunt, Potter,” Draco muttered, trying and failing exquisitely to hide his breathlessness, nor the satisfaction of knowing he played a special role in something that meant as much to Potter as Quidditch.

“You know, for a spoilt little pureblooded brat, you sure do have one hell of a mouth on you,” Potter said cheekily; his stubbled cheek scratched across Draco’s skin, one hand still intertwined with Draco’s, the other coming to rest heavily on his hip. Draco could have screamed; it didn’t matter how many times Potter revealed his capacity to say the filthiest, most provocative things, Draco felt he would always, each and every time, be taken utterly by surprise at how much it turned him on. 

“I love it when you talk dirty, Potter,” Draco drawled, attempting a scornful, facetious tone and managing only to highlight the transparent honesty of the statement. Potter pulled back a bit, just enough so Draco could see his vividly green eyes sparkling with nascent amusement.

“I _know_ you do, Malfoy,” he said goadingly, leaning forward once more to place a very deliberate kiss to the corner of Draco’s mouth. As usual, Draco had to hide the way his insides melted. “Maybe if you beg me a little bit I’ll talk to you some more—”

Draco cut him off with an indignant “Fuck off, Potter!” and a shove at his chest, but all Potter did was burst into laughter. He had let go of Draco’s hand in order to catch himself before he tumbled from the bed, and when he’d balanced himself and settled back against one of the bed’s four posts, still chuckling, he stuck out a hand in the direction of the desk, and said, “ _Accio firewhisky!_ ” The bottle zoomed neatly into Potter’s open palm, prompting a pronounced eye roll from Draco.

“Your ostentatious displays of wandless magic are wholly unnecessary, Potter,” Draco grumbled, not entirely sure whether it annoyed him more that Potter was capable of such astounding magical feats, or that he, Draco, was so unbearably turned on by them.

“They’re not _displays_ ,” Potter said, opening the bottle and taking a swig. He grimaced and handed the last of it over to Draco. “If I’d hand my wand in my hand rather than over _there_ , I would have used it.”

“Whatever you say, Potter.” Draco lifted an eyebrow at him before pouring the remainder of the alcohol down his throat and then setting it aside on his bedside table.

“So, are you staying here for the holidays?”

Draco nearly choked on the burning liquid still traveling down his throat. When the coughing subsided, he leveled Potter with an incredulous look.

“Not one for subtlety, are you?” he said stiffly.

“Sorry,” Potter said, and he did, at least, look a bit embarrassed. “I didn’t know how to bring it up, so I figured I’d just…you know, _ask_.”

“And with brilliant timing as always,” Draco said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Why do you care? You’ll be going to the Weasleys’, I imagine?”

“Well, yeah, but I was just wondering if…I mean, your mum…” He shrugged helplessly, looking more awkward than Draco had seen Potter look in quite some time. It was a small consolation for the sudden and unwarranted appearance of a topic Draco wasn’t keen to discuss. “Have you…that is, are you going to…?” 

“Tell her?” Draco finished the sentence for him, taking pity. Potter nodded. “No,” he said, dropping his gaze. “I haven’t told her. So yes, I _am_ staying here for the holidays. I plan to keep it from her until either I’m back to normal or the school year ends and I have no other choice.” 

“Right,” Potter said quietly, nodding, an indecipherable look of contemplation on his face. “But she…your mum, I mean…she’d never…that is to say, she’d never kick you out or anything, would she? Because of this?”

Something very cold descended into Draco’s chest, a trepidation whose origin he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Kick me out?” he repeated, pulling his legs in closer, away from Potter, his back straightening in a defensive posture. Potter appeared to read something of Draco’s disquietude on his face, because he, too, seemed to stiffen a little bit. When Draco spoke next, he heard the barely-concealed suspicion-cum-accusation in his own voice. “Why would my own _mother_ kick me out, Potter?”

“I don’t think _she_ would, but…I was just asking…just making sure—” 

“And what do you mean, _‘she’_?” Draco asked, a note of irritation having edged into his tone. His heart was beating rapidly, and it wasn’t because of Potter’s closeness. They seemed to be suddenly teetering precariously on the edge of dangerous territory. A sense of foreboding and irascibility that Draco associated with Potter but had not felt for many months in his company now filled Draco’s head with its ominous presence, making his muscles tight and his teeth clench.

Potter had sat up, no longer lounging back against the bedpost, and said carefully, “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything—” 

“No, go on, Potter,” Draco bit out, standing up from the bed with his head suddenly filled with an angry, miserable buzzing. It was as though Potter had rooted around in his own deepest, darkest fears—the ones he wouldn’t acknowledge even to himself when he could help it—and pulled them into the light. “You’re talking about my father, right? You’re saying my _mother_ wouldn’t abandon me, not of her own accord, but perhaps my _father_ would?”

Potter stood up from the bed as well, a complicated mixture of different emotions on his face, but mostly he just looked like he was simultaneously trying to gather his thoughts even as he held himself back. He was watching Draco as though he were facing off with some wild animal he was trying not to startle, and this as much as anything else fueled the flames of Draco’s indignation. 

“I didn’t say that, Draco—”

“You may as well have!” he shouted. Every horrible, fearful thought Draco had ever had since acquiring this body seemed to have been released from a Pandora’s Box of emotion he’d kept locked successfully away all this time. But of course, Potter had always been the one person capable of utterly demolishing the order of Draco’s carefully-compartmentalized emotions, and with the news of Theo’s father’s fate still sitting fresh and raw in Draco’s brain, he was especially vulnerable to the topic. “So, what, you think my father would take one look at me like this and disown me, do you?” 

“Draco, I—”

“You think that’s all I am to him?!” he drowned out Potter’s weak protest, horrified to feel the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes. His hands were shaking. “Just an heir, only useful as a male, if I can keep the Malfoy name alive?! How pathetic do you think I am, exactly? What were you thinking when you stopped my father from receiving the Kiss? ‘Poor, naïve Draco, pining after a father who doesn’t even _love_ him—!’”

“ _No_ ,” Potter gritted out, “of course not. Draco, I—” 

“MY FATHER LOVES ME, POTTER!” 

“YOUR FATHER SOLD YOU INTO SERVITUDE FOR VOLDEMORT!” Potter roared, the intensity and volume of his voice shocking Draco into a stunned silence. He watched Potter with wide, wet eyes, fury and nausea fighting for dominance inside of him. Even Potter seemed a bit taken aback, his chest heaving, green eyes shining with a furious passion. “You were _sixteen_ when they forced you to take the Dark Mark—!”

“My father was in Azkaban!” Draco yelled, a tear spilling down his cheek now. “Because of _you_ , he was in Azkaban, and I took the Mark _willingly!_ For _him!_ I _wanted_ it!” His voice broke on these last words. These days, he couldn’t tell if it was the truth anymore. All he remembered was, at the time, wanting to do anything in his power to get his family back into the Dark Lord’s good graces. He wiped defiantly at a tear, thinking bitterly of what Potter had said about remorse, about the way he’d cried to him, opened himself up in such an intimate way, only to be left with _this_. “And now he's in Azkaban _again_ , because of _your_ righteousness! And you think you've savedhim, saved  _me,_ by stopping the Dementor's Kiss, but you know as well as I do he'll have lost his mind in six months' time anyway! That's the only reason you did it! But you don’t _know_ my father, Potter, you never did! You don't know anything about my family, about my parents, about  _me_ — _!”_

“Draco,” Potter said again, carefully, but the sound of it—that soft, cautious tone of voice, his given name on Potter’s lips—was that final push Draco needed over some invisible edge.

“Just get the hell out of here, Potter!” he snapped, and in a fit of emotion he snatched up Potter’s jumper, which had been hanging over the back of an armchair, and threw it at Potter’s chest. Potter caught it and clutched it limply in his hands, looking as though he wanted to say something and was fighting against it. This display of control was too much for Draco, who felt as though his own rapidly-inflating emotions were about two seconds away from making his lungs explode. He grabbed his wand from his bedside table and flung a hex at Potter, who cast a wandless Shield Charm just in time to block it, and the spell rebounded, exploding against a mirror and sending shards of glass flying. Chest heaving, he looked back at Potter. “Get out of here,” he said again, and this time Potter moved. 

He gathered up his robes, stuck his wand into his pocket, and grabbed his Invisibility Cloak in silence, then stopped with his hand on the door, the Cloak draped across his shoulders. He opened his mouth— 

“ _Go_ , Potter,” Draco said firmly, furiously biting back more tears until he was alone. 

There was a long moment where he thought Potter might still insist on trying to have his say, but then he was nodding, gazing one last time into Draco’s eyes, and disappearing underneath the Cloak. A second later the door had opened and closed behind him, and a minute after that Draco heard the muffled sound of the Slytherin common room entrance opening and closing as well.

A hollow void seemed to have appeared in Draco's chest as he went back to his bed and sank down onto it, bringing his knees to his chest and burying his face there as sobs wracked his body.

When he finally put out the lights fifteen minutes later and plunged himself into a chilly, suffocating darkness, his last miserable thought before he fell asleep was that Potter would be on the train back to London tomorrow morning, and Draco wouldn't have to see him for nearly a month. 

It was painful beyond comprehension to realize he would not be able to trick himself into ignoring how much he already missed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	18. Chapter 18

The weather as Harry boarded the Hogwarts Express Saturday morning was cruelly indifferent to his inner turmoil: the sky was a uniform, pellucid blue that reflected itself merrily in the dark windows of the train. Nor was there any hint of clouds—just the relentless glare of a winter sun, making the snow on the ground glimmer so brightly Harry had to look away lest he go blind.

He, Ron, and Hermione found a compartment near the back of the train. Ginny was, according to Hermione, sitting somewhere with Dean; Harry couldn’t quite figure out how he felt about this information, and it took several minutes for him to realize this was because he didn’t _have_ all that many feelings about it. There was some part of him which was glad Ginny and Dean had found their way back to one another, happy just to know that Ginny was happy, that she’d moved on. But a much larger part of him was not focused on Ginny at all, but rather the realization that he, too, had so thoroughly moved on.

Of course Ginny’s interest in other men wouldn’t bother him anymore. Why should it? Why _should_ it, when the whole of Harry’s attention lately had been on Draco Malfoy? 

With their luggage stored overhead, Ron and Hermione took a seat opposite Harry, who rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and looked wistfully out at the landscape as they were carried out of Hogsmeade station. The altercation from the night before had not stopped replaying in his head since the moment he’d left the Slytherin dungeons, and he was quite sure that, if this kept up, he would go utterly mad by the time they reached London.

Normally, Hermione would have already buried her nose in a book by the time they were ten minutes out of Hogsmeade, but today, both she and Ron kept exchanging covert glances that Harry was very much aware of, but didn’t bother mentioning. He’d gotten used to this over the years—Ron and Hermione’s silent form of communication in his presence, particularly when they were preparing to broach a topic they planned to tag-team.

“Harry?” Hermione ventured softly. Without moving his head from the window, he looked over at her. “You’ve been very quiet today. Did something happen?”

He was silent for a moment, contemplating his answer. In the end, he pushed himself off the window and regaled them with the whole unhappy tale, finishing with the hex Malfoy had thrown at him before screeching at Harry to leave. Hermione looked troubled and Ron disturbed.

“Well…it was bound to happen eventually, right?” Ron tried, apparently of the mindset that this was a comforting thing to say. Hermione squawked at him indignantly and smacked his arm. Harry, to his own immense surprise, managed a small smile.

“S’pose he’s right, though, isn’t he?” he said miserably, slumping back against his seat. “It’s me and Malfoy. We were gonna fight sooner or later.”

“First of all,” Hermione said pointedly, once again shooting a nasty look at Ron, “even the best of friends fight now and then, something I would think _you two_ might remember from the first couple of months we spent hunting Horcruxes and sniping at one another.” Ron’s face colored deeply and he pouted. “Second, there is no _rule_ saying you and Malfoy have to fight, Harry. Clearly, seeing as you two have fallen into…some sort of relationship, things are not as they once were. Maybe what you _mean_ to say is that you and Malfoy have a rocky history, and something was bound to come up at some point on which the two of you disagree, or at the very least a sore subject. _One_ argument certainly does not mean you have to stop seeing each other. Maybe over the holidays he’ll have a chance to cool down, and when we come back you can talk to him about it again.”

Harry did not think much of this suggestion—the holidays seemed suddenly years long, and it was with an ache in the pit of his stomach that he thought about how much time lay ahead of him where he wouldn’t be able to speak to Malfoy, to at least talk this over. 

“It wasn’t really a _fight_ anyway, was it?” Hermione said sagely. Harry frowned at her. “It seems more to me that you said precisely the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time, Harry. It’s not your fault—honestly, I would have been concerned about the same thing. Lucius doesn’t seem the type to be very understanding, does he? Still, you might have done better to avoid voicing those concerns.”

“Yeah, Malfoy worships his dad,” Ron added, as though determined to say something useful. “Plus, did you see the _Prophet_ the other day? Nott’s dad was sentenced to the Kiss. Bet you anything Malfoy’s thinking about dear old Lucius’s narrow escape.” 

“That’s right, Ron!” Hermione said, beaming at him. This was a face reserved almost exclusively for the very rare moments when Ron managed to spot something both Harry and Hermione had somehow missed, and the sight of it never failed to tickle Harry. “He’s absolutely right, Harry, can you imagine what Malfoy’s thinking right now? And it’s only because of _you_ that his father’s sentence was reversed.”

Harry shrugged, feeling marginally better, if only because he was now blaming himself a bit less for the debacle. If Hermione felt he hadn’t done anything tactless and hurtful, surely he was in the clear…

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Well, I guess there’s not much to do but wait until I can talk to him again after the holidays.”

The remainder of the train ride back to King’s Cross was decidedly free of any talk about Malfoy, although he never quite left Harry’s mind. When they arrived at the station, Mrs. Weasley was there to greet them, and because Ginny, while having turned seventeen in August, did not yet have her license to Apparate, Kingsley—now interim Minister—had loaned them a Ministry car to use. Hermione, whose parents’ enchantment had been lifted, were spending their holiday in Italy, but Hermione had chosen to come with to the Burrow.

And to Harry’s delight, even his worries over Malfoy couldn’t dampen the wonderful feeling of being at the Weasleys’ house, most especially during the holidays. Bill and George came and went regularly, and even Kingsley found time to stop by for dinner now and then. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny spent long hours alternately playing two-on-two Quidditch and then huddling up beneath blankets in the sitting room in front of the fire, large mugs of hot cocoa cupped in their cold hands while Crookshanks wound between their legs, purring loudly.

Sometimes, the thought of Malfoy, lonely and cold in his dungeon dorm room, would threaten to burst Harry’s happy bubble, but he tried not to dwell on it too much, knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. 

The night of Christmas Eve came, and with it Harry’s mind wandered to a small parcel stored in his rucksack upstairs, beside his camp bed in Ron’s room. While Ron and Ginny had been called by Mrs. Weasley to help with dinner, Harry pulled Hermione aside and showed her the necklace he’d gotten in Hogsmeade, with the miniature Snitch which, like a real one, would respond only to the first person to touch it. It was encased in glass like a fossil might have been, and would, according to the saleswitch, melt away at the tap of a wand. He told Hermione all of this along with his tentative plan, and she put a hand to her heart.

“Oh, Harry,” she breathed, taking it with wide, warmth-filled eyes. “Did you get it for Malfoy?”

Harry felt his cheeks burn red and nodded.

“Yeah. I just…I thought of him when I saw it, you know? Snitches…I mean, Seeking was always one of our…our _things_ , right?”

“Absolutely, Harry,” Hermione assured him, probably having seen the trepidation on his face. “It’s beautiful and it _means_ something to you, most importantly. Are you going to send it to him?”

“That’s the plan,” he said, lifting a hand to rub at the back of his neck. “Is it…you know, is it too much?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think it’s really lovely. And at the very least, he’ll know you’re thinking about him, won’t he?”

So, with his heart a bit lighter, Harry took the necklace back upstairs and wrapped it. After dinner, he used Pigwidgeon to send the gift and an attached note to Hogwarts, where it would hopefully reach Malfoy by the time he woke up.

And, if he was very lucky, perhaps it would soothe some of the hurt from their last, disastrous encounter.

* * *

There had been two other times Draco had stayed at Hogwarts over Christmas holidays: second year, when the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, and fourth year, for the Triwizard Tournament. Both of these things were linked inexorably to Potter, and it was with a sour taste in his mouth that Draco contemplated the castle’s silence.

Of course, even had he not been suffering these circumstances, had he gone home for the holidays, it would not have been as it once was. The manor was nearly bare after the Ministry had raided it and seized most of their possessions. There would be no decorations, no fairy lights lining every corridor, no giant Christmas trees studded with silver and green ornaments—worst of all, no Lucius Malfoy.

Draco had sent a letter to his mother, and the one he had received back had been especially painful to read. She was clearly trying very hard not to sound as miserable as she was, but her words hid nothing. He could imagine her wandering around that enormous, empty mansion alone, unable to leave, watched day and night by Aurors outside the perimeter.

The only other Slytherin in his year to have stayed was Theo, and because being alone was almost more than Draco could bear at the moment, he had taken to spending time with him.

On the night of Christmas Eve, Draco did not go down to dinner—he could not bear the festive atmosphere, could not stand to look at the younger students and their grinning faces, so unblemished, so innocent, so filled with enthusiasm over a holiday Draco did not feel he deserved to celebrate. Not when there were hundreds of families across Britain who would not be celebrating but mourning their first Christmas without those loved ones who had died under the Dark Lord’s regime. 

Instead, he stayed in the Slytherin common room, curled up in a chair near the fire with a book, and tried not to think about what he would have been doing right now if he’d gone home. 

Worst of all, of Potter.

It was nearing nine o’clock when Theo came back up from dinner, and he was carrying a plate of food.

“Thought you might be hungry,” he said, setting it down on a table in front of the chairs. “You prefer chicken to turkey, right?”

Draco, eyebrows furrowed, looked from the plate of food to Theo, who had sat down nearby and looked pleased with himself.

“Yes…” he said slowly, sitting up in his chair and setting the book aside on the arm. He _was_ hungry, he realized now, mouth watering at the smell of the food. “How did you know that?”

“Just remembered, I guess,” he shrugged.

Although this was highly strange considering he and Theo had never been close enough friends for him to have picked up on such minor food preferences, Draco did not say anything, pulling the plate into his lap instead and lifting a forkful of the tender meat to his mouth. 

“So, er—Draco, can I ask you something?”

Draco paused for a moment with the food still in his mouth, made wary by Theo’s tone of voice. He had had a feeling for about a week now that Theo was working himself up to something, he had seemed highly lost inside his thoughts a good chunk of the time, and often Draco would catch him staring off into space as though contemplating a difficult problem.

“Sure,” he said once he’d finished chewing and swallowed, washing it down with a large glass of pumpkin juice.

“Is there something going on between you and Potter?”

Draco froze, another piece of chicken halfway to his mouth. Instinct, however, kicked in immediately, and he was able to relax his shoulders, his facial muscles. He set the fork back down on the plate and raised an eyebrow at Theo.

“I’m sorry, what is it exactly that you’re asking me, Theo? What is ‘something’ supposed to mean?”

Theo shrugged, looking perfectly comfortable despite Draco’s obvious wariness and dislike for the question. There was a gleam of something in his eyes that could have been suspicion, but Draco liked to believe that was simply his Slytherin cunning shining through. It was very easy, after all, to make somebody talk when they thought you already knew.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he said, crossing a leg over his knee and leaning maddeningly back into his chair. He surveyed Draco with eyes as dark as Potter’s were bright. “Potter speaking on behalf of your father, I mean. You told me it was something to do with your mother… I was just wondering whether, you know…that might not be the whole story. It just seems unlikely he would have cared enough to fly all the way to the Ministry now he’s back at school just to testify for Lucius Malfoy, of all people. Not, of course, unless he had a reason.”

Draco’s stomach did a funny, uncomfortable twist.

“Go on,” Draco said, maintaining his calm countenance by a thread. Theo would not look away, and neither would he. It would have been bad enough before, when there really _had_ been something going on between himself and Potter. Now, all this served to do was both startle him and remind him of a painful truth: as of two weeks ago, there _was_ nothing going on. Not anymore. “Say what you’re thinking, Theo. Maybe if you say it out loud you’ll hear how stupid it sounds.”

“Are you shagging him?”

Draco clenched his teeth. “Is this supposed to be some sort of tasteless joke?” he said, voice low and dangerous. “In what world do you suppose I would climb into bed with _Potter?_ I don’t care if he _is_ the bloody savior of the Wizarding world. Don’t be an idiot, Theo.”

But Theo looked more amused than ever. “So that’s a no.”

“It’s a no,” he bit out. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Potter’s straight. And in case you’ve _forgotten_ , I’m not actually a bloody woman.”

“You _are_ bent, though, aren’t you?” 

Taken completely off guard, all Draco could do in response to this was stare, bewildered, eyebrows drawn, across the table at Theo. Half cast in shadow from the dying fire, he looked rather imposing.

“How did you know that?” he said quietly. Theo was no longer smiling. He shrugged.

“Everyone at Hogwarts knows, Draco. Surely you heard the rumors all these years.”

Stiffly, Draco moved the plate from his lap back to the table, all without taking his eyes from Theo’s face. Of he’d heard the rumors…how could he not? Yet he’d never been approached about it before, never had somebody as him point-blank. 

In fact, he thought with a painful stab of longing in his gut, the only person he’d told was Potter. It had never before been safe to tell any other Slytherins for fear of it getting back to his family—worst of all, his father.

And just like that, the memory of his and Potter’s fight came flooding back, filling him with despair.

“It’s alright, Draco.” Theo’s voice was unexpectedly soft, and Draco looked up from where he’d been staring down into his lap, trying to force back his emotions lest they show on his face. “It’s not as though I’ve discussed it with anyone. I’m—er—curious for my own reasons, if I’m being honest.”

“What do you mean?” he asked slowly. The hint of a smile came back to Theo’s lips.

“Don’t worry about it.”

And while Draco despised being left in the dark this way, hated more than _anything_ to feel like he was the subject of a joke he didn’t understand, he didn’t question Theo further. Even if he’d wanted to, Theo chose that moment to stand up, and he squeezed Draco’s slim shoulder before retiring to the boys’ dormitory into which Draco was no longer allowed.

It was several hours later that Draco went to his own private room and proceeded to spend the entirety of the night tossing and turning uselessly in his bed, alternately dwelling on Theo’s cryptic questions and that last fight with Potter. As had been the case since the start of the holidays, he went back and forth many times between despising Potter and his silent accusations, the unwarranted concern in his unnaturally green eyes, the maddeningly _knowing_ look he’d pinned Draco with, the one that said, “I know your father, and I know what he would do if he saw you this way.”

Except Potter hadn’t actually _said_ any of that, and a very small voice inside Draco’s head kept insisting that wasn’t it at least _possible_ he was projecting some of his own fears onto Potter?

It was with red eyes, puffy from crying and rubbing and lack of sleep, that Draco rolled out of bed at six in the morning and left the common room. There was nowhere in particular he wanted to go, as long as he wasn’t suffocating inside his room. 

His feet led him up to the entrance hall and out into the grounds, where the sun was only just beginning to peek over the horizon and a fresh layer of snow glittered prettily everywhere he looked. He sat down on the enormous stone steps that descended from the oaken front doors and breathed in deeply. 

Hardly fifteen minutes had passed when he noticed a miniscule speck appear in the sky. An owl, no doubt. The first of many, who would be bringing presents to the students of Hogwarts who had stayed behind for the holidays.

But the owl stayed on a straight course, never turning to head for the owlery or one of the common rooms’ windows. Indeed, it seemed to be coming straight at Draco, and it was with less than a second to spare that Draco realized that was _exactly_ what it was doing, and jumped out of the way to avoid a collision. He stared at it blankly, not recognizing the owl and unable to understand who in the world could have been bringing him a parcel for Christmas other than his mother. 

The owl hooted excitably as he removed its burden, and then it took flight once again.

Hands a bit shaky, Draco stared at the small package a moment, uncomprehending, and then finally saw the small note which was attached:

 

_Draco —_

_Merry Christmas._

_Been missing you since I left. I’m sorry._

_\- Harry_

Mouth and throat both dry, he moved the pad of his thumb delicately across the handwritten words before setting the note aside and opening the parcel.

His chest clenched at the sight of a necklace suspended inside a glass case, the pendant of which was a miniature Snitch.

He deliberately ignored the hot tickling of tears at the corners of his eyes as he pulled out his wand, pressed it to the glass, and watched as it melted away. As soon as the Snitch touched his palm, it glowed warm and bright, and its wings immediately began to flutter. 

His hands trembled as he lifted the delicate chain over his head and tucked it beneath his shirt. It was warm against his skin, and when he touched it once more, it fluttered its wings again.

A tear dripped down his cheek.

“Fuck,” he whispered to the empty air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Find me at lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com!)


	19. Chapter 19

The first day back at classes after the rest of the school returned, Draco did something he never would have believed of himself: he skipped the classes he had with Potter. And not only that, but he didn’t go down to the Great Hall for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. He asked Pansy to bring him food, but it was Theo who wound up doing it. He had a knowing look on his face when he handed Draco his plates, but he said nothing, and somehow that was even more infuriating.

Unbeknownst to anyone but himself, he continued to wear the Snitch necklace day and night, hidden beneath his robes. Sometimes his hand would drift to the place it sat against his chest, press his palm against the bump it made under his clothes, and even through all that material it seemed to sense its owner, because it would glow warm and comforting against his skin. Some part of him realized that the comfort came from the fact that it was a gift from Potter, but Draco liked to pretend, when he could, that Potter had little to do with it. 

This couldn’t continue, of course—not only was going to his classes conducive to graduating, but it was shameful almost beyond reason to be _hiding_ from Potter. It wasn’t a fight Draco was afraid of; in fact, he would have welcomed a fight. Fighting was familiar territory, it was something he knew how to handle, something where they stood on even ground. It may have felt like shit after he’d ordered Potter from his room the last time they’d spoken, but at least that pain was familiar. Manageable. Draco had dealt with far worse pain since the end of the war. 

What he _couldn’t_ deal with was the way he knew Potter was going to look at him when they saw each other. What he _couldn’t_ handle was examining his feelings, and he knew that if he was alone with Boy Wonder, it would be impossible to push them back down again like he’d been doing the past month of the holidays.

And frankly, he was far from ready to take a closer look at the things he was feeling for and about Harry Potter these days.

On the second day back, Draco burrowed under his quilt in the morning and decided he wasn’t going to Defense. It was the only class he and Potter had together that day; he would miss that and nothing else. So, having missed breakfast and his first period, Draco finally forced himself to abandon the safety of his room in time for Arithmancy.

He was a floor down when a deep voice shouting his name stopped him in his tracks and turned his blood cold. One look showed him a boy only a little bit smaller than Kenny Helstrom, wearing Hufflepuff colors. Everything Draco had ever thought about Hufflepuffs made it impossible not to sneer at the boy contemptuously, as if abundant muscle meant nothing on a Hufflepuff.

Part of him felt like crying—why today? Why did this have to happen _today_? Had being on break for a month not disrupted anyone’s desire to make Draco Malfoy miserable? Another part of him, however—the part which was ruthlessly stubborn—was glad for a chance to yell at somebody.

The corridor was empty, not being one of the more popular routes to classes, which made Draco wonder whether this boy had followed him, just hoping he would separate himself from the student body, making him an even easier target than usual. The irony of it was that since Kenny Helstrom, he had deliberately avoided taking the least-trodden hallways for this exact reason.

“All right, Malfoy?” the boy said, his grin malicious as he stepped closer. Draco stood his ground, clenched his jaw, and raised a condescending eyebrow. 

“Can I help you?” he drawled. The boy grinned more widely and took another step, causing Draco to automatically back up, forcing him against a wall. Panic flared in his chest as he was reminded irresistibly of the way Kenny had cornered him.

“Not unless you can bring my aunt back to life,” said the boy, who was now close enough Draco could smell some hint of strong cologne. “Your dad killed her, you know.” 

Draco’s chest clenched. Back to the wall, he looked up into the face of this nameless boy whose family had, apparently, been murdered by Draco’s father, and he said nothing. He couldn’t think of anything _to_ say. He had learned over the last few months that there wasn’t much he could say that would help—these people, the ones who cornered him, who looked at him with that manic, ferocious glee, they didn’t _want_ him to say anything. They didn’t want an apology, they didn’t want to hear him say he regretted it, or that he believed his father was better off locked up. 

They wanted what Kenny Helstrom had wanted. To hurt him, especially now that he was in this much smaller, more helpless body.

“I’m _talking_ to you,” the boy growled when Draco remained silent, looking up at him with defiant eyes and a set mouth but nothing to say. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself, Malfoy? Your father _killed_ my aunt, you piece of trash!”

But before the fist that was pulled back could make contact with Draco’s stomach, the Hufflepuff boy was yanked away, and Draco opened his eyes to see him stumbling and looking around wildly.

Draco’s heart sped up, expecting Potter—except it wasn’t an unruly mop of black hair he saw on his savior, but a flaming mass of red.

Ron Weasley was yelling something Draco couldn’t make out, shoving the heavily-muscled Hufflepuff toward the end of the corridor, until, with a sour look back, he finally left. Draco stared with an open mouth as Weasley turned back to him.

“Why would you take an out-of-the-way corridor like this, Malfoy? Half the school is looking for a chance to get you alone so they can knock your teeth out.”

Feeling rather as though he must be dreaming, Draco merely stared at Weasley, having lost his ability to formulate words, let alone follow a rational train of thought. But Weasley seemed to have seen his confusion, because his cheeks darkened with color. He didn’t, however, look away. To his credit, he looked stubbornly resolute. 

“I’ll—er—take that look on your face to mean Harry didn’t tell you I know?”

Draco shook his head slowly.

“Right. Well—that’s between you two. Are you—er—okay, then? That bloke didn’t actually hurt you, did he?”

Still unable to find his voice, Weasley waited a moment before apparently deciding nothing was forthcoming and, with a shrug of his shoulders and an irritated look on his face, he turned to leave.

“Wait,” Draco managed at the last second, getting Weasley’s attention before he disappeared around a corner. Weasley turned around with an eyebrow lifted, and Draco had to fight off his hackles from raising. “Why did you do that just now?” 

“Just told you, didn’t I? Figured Harry wouldn’t want that idiot hurting you or whatever.”

Keeping a safe distance, Draco surveyed Weasley with narrowed eyes, thinking back suddenly to an encounter with Granger many months ago, in a girls’ toilet near their Defense classroom. The first time Draco had gotten his period, and what was it Granger had said to him? Something about Weasley not knowing, how Weasley would have gone into shock, and burning that bridge when they came to it.

So what in Salazar’s name was this, then?

“What exactly is it that you think you know, Weasley?” Draco said stiffly, attempting an air of unconcernedness that lacked its usual luster and believability. Weasley seemed to sense his apprehension, because for just a moment a satisfied grin came across his face before he visibly forced it away. This show of tact and self-control was utterly foreign on the boy who had once attacked Draco in the Quidditch stands their first year.

“Just what Harry’s told me.” Draco opened his mouth, but Weasley, possibly seeing the anger on Draco’s face, went on quickly, “Look, I forced it out of him, Malfoy, so don’t go getting upset with Harry. It was that stuff with Helstrom…made me realize something was going on.”

“You’re behind the times then, Weasley,” Draco sneered. “Whatever may have been ‘ _going on_ ’ ended before the lot of you even left for the holidays. He and I haven’t spoken in a month.” 

“Yeah, and when Harry decides he wants to talk to you, skiving off all the lessons we have together isn’t going to stop him. You know that, don’t you?” 

Draco frowned deeply, despising absolutely everything about that sentence. He felt color blooming tellingly on his cheeks, and Weasley looked far too smug to have missed it.

“He knows that’s why you keep missing class,” Weasley said. Draco glowered, but Weasley’s face finally sobered up a bit. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets beneath his gaping robes. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to _like_ you, Malfoy, after everything that’s happened. But, you know…Harry’s my best mate. And even if I do think he’s too quick to forgive some people, I also trust him.” 

“So, what?” Draco drawled. He was displeased to see no reaction from Weasley more than a slight twitch of a frown at the corner of his lips. “By extension, you’ve nobly decided to trust me, as well?”

“Not even close,” Weasley said flatly. Draco’s eyebrows came together, studying Weasley like he’d never seen him clearly before. He was a Gryffindor, alright—but he wasn’t like Potter. There was, quite paradoxically, something harder about his face, and yet it made him less intimidating than Potter. “I meant that I trust he knows what he’s doing. And I _do_ know about that row you guys had before we left. Believe me, I would have loved nothing more than for that to be the end of it.”

“Then _why_ are you still talking, Weasley? Why did you bother pulling that Neanderthal off of me—?” 

“Because it’s _not_ the end of it,” Weasley bit out. “You idiot, he’s miserable. And as much as I don’t like you, I can’t pretend he wasn’t doing better than me and Hermione have seen him since...since the end of sixth year.” Weasley looked away, and Draco’s cheeks flushed again. The reference to Albus Dumbledore’s death was deafening in its omission. “You pulled him out of his head. I dunno how, but you did. This last month, he’s just been getting harder and harder to talk to again.”

“And this is somehow my problem?” Although his insides were squirming around unpleasantly, Draco forced his voice to remain drawling and apathetic. “If he was enjoying the pleasure of my company so much, then please do explain to me why he thought insulting my family was a good idea?”

“He wasn’t insulting your family, Malfoy!” Weasley shouted, then looked around, alarmed by his own outburst. When it was clear they hadn’t been heard, he rounded on Draco again, this time in a hissing whisper. “He was _worried_ about you, you git. That’s what Harry _does_ —he _worries_ about people.” 

“And then sniffs out an opportunity to play the hero.” 

“Pretty much, yeah.” 

Horribly, Draco’s mouth twitched into a grin for just a second before he schooled his expression

“Like I said, Malfoy,” Weasley continued. “I don’t like you, so the fact I’m trying to convince you to talk to Harry should speak volumes. Last few nights, he’s been going up to the Astronomy Tower. Says he can’t sleep. I think if you went up there around midnight, you’d probably find him.” 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Draco said after a moment. Weasley nodded, started to turn, and then looked back once again.

“I know Harry seems like he’s unbreakable, Malfoy. And for the most part, he pretty much is. But he’s gone through some seriously fucked up shit in his life, and if anyone deserves something good, it’s Harry. Whatever you decide to do, just make sure you let _him_ know.” 

With those words left ringing inside Draco’s head, Weasley finally left for good. And Draco, who would now be too late to go to class, returned to his dormitory to begin an internal debate.

* * *

When Draco walked out onto the Astronomy Tower at a few minutes past midnight, he immediately identified Potter’s shadowy figure near the battlements, shoulders hunched where he leaned on a balustrade. It was frightfully cold, so when Draco approached him from behind and heard sniffling, he at first attributed it to a runny nose. When Potter heard him, however, and turned, Draco realized with a pang of horror that Potter had been _crying_.

“Draco?” he said roughly, straightening up and wiping unashamedly at his cheeks. Draco lowered his gaze, as though what he was seeing was indecent. It seemed uncanny Weasley had earlier the same day warned about the cracks in Potter’s stoic façade, only now to be confronted with the proof of it. “How did you…?” 

“Weasley,” Draco said, still looking down. He could feel Potter’s eyes on him. It seemed strange, foreign, that Potter wasn’t running away, ashamed to be caught like this. Draco knew with every ounce of certainty he would have run. “I…ran into him today between lessons. He told me I’d find you up here.”

And now he finally did look up, and Potter’s eyes were fluorescent with tears, greener than Draco had ever seen them before.

“Why were you crying?” he whispered. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure he expected Potter to answer, but a moment later he was holding out a wrinkled photograph of whom Draco knew to be Potter’s parents, as well as a very young Remus Lupin and Sirius Black, all smiling and waving up at him.

“Sometimes I just…miss them more than usual,” Potter said softly. “I saw Teddy, over the holidays—Remus’s son, that is. It’s fucked up, that he’ll never get to know his parents. That Remus won’t see him grow up. Hits me all at once now and then.”

Feeling extremely awkward and trying not to think about the fact that he had been discussing this very child with Theo not so long ago, Draco handed the picture back silently. He’d never seen Potter so emotionally vulnerable, and for the first time in a while he remembered what Potter had once been telling him in the prefects’ bathroom, about not sleeping, about being plagued by the war so often he couldn’t escape it. 

And perhaps for the first time _ever_ , a terrible thought occurred to Draco: he’d been so busy grieving over his incarcerated mother and father, and meanwhile, Potter didn’t even _have_ parents. They were dead, and had been so long it was likely Potter couldn’t remember a thing about them.

The reality of the horrors Potter had faced since he was a year old seemed to strike Draco across the face with brutal intensity.

“That’s, er—that’s my cousin’s son, isn’t it?” Draco said with a croaky voice, a poor attempt at covering his suddenly flared-up emotions.

Because now that he thought about it, he _did_ have a vague, unpleasant memory of the Dark Lord mentioning this once in the drawing room, antagonizing Bellatrix and his mother about their niece marrying a werewolf. At the time, Draco hadn’t put it together—he’d been too busy being horrified by his predicament. Now it hit him like a bludger to the head.

“Tonks, yeah,” Potter said. “He’s my godson. Guess he’s, like, your second cousin or something.”

“First cousin, once removed,” Draco corrected him quietly. For a long minute there was silence, and Draco took the opportunity to gather up all of his courage and ignore every warning his brain was throwing at him. His heart was full, being near Potter again, and for once in his life, he was going to listen to that instead. “Look…Potter…” He broke off, and Potter looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. “I…I shouldn’t have tried to hex you. I shouldn’t have kicked you out of my room. I just…” But Potter was shaking his head and there was a comforting little grin on his face now.

“You don’t need to apologize,” Potter said. His eyes were a bit red-rimmed, he looked utterly exhausted, but that vitality that Draco associated with Potter’s presence was warm and strong and making his blood sing in his veins. 

“I want to,” Draco countered. He met Potter’s eyes defiantly. “You didn’t have to save my father from the Kiss in the first place, and…and I can’t imagine it was easy to explain to your friends at the time. And…” Letting the word linger, he reached for Potter’s hand, thrilling at the contact, and pressed the palm over his chest, just above the small bump that indicated the little Snitch. It didn’t respond to Potter’s touch, didn’t become warm like it did for Draco’s hand, but Potter seemed to know what it was anyway because he smiled all the way to his eyes. 

“You’re wearing it?” 

“I missed you too, Potter.”

And then Potter’s warm hand was on his cheek instead of his chest, and Draco had never been so hungry for contact before. They came together like plates colliding, like divers coming up from the bottom of the ocean, and the familiar slide of Potter’s tongue sweeping along the velvety lining of his mouth was sweeter than any wine he’d ever tasted. His hands clutched frantically at Potter’s cloak, he gasped brazenly for air every time their lips parted, and then dove back in without an ounce of shame. Potter’s hands were vices on his back and his waist, holding him so tightly Draco might have been afraid of being snapped in half had he the brain power to worry about anything other than drinking his fill. 

Minutes slipped by without notice, and finally Potter’s hands moved to cup his face, breathing hard and stealing breathless kiss after breathless kiss until they were doing nothing more than panting into one another’s mouths. 

“Draco,” Potter whispered, and it sounded mindless, reverent, even. Draco shivered and pushed his fingers through Potter’s hair. Every moment seemed to bring with it a new understanding for how desperately Draco had missed him, and how thoroughly he’d managed to pretend it wasn’t so.

“Come back to my room,” he heard himself saying. “Do you have the Cloak?”

Potter nodded, and a jolt of dizzy lust made his whole body seem to contract with anticipation. The Cloak was retrieved from the inside of the one Potter was already wearing and he disappeared beneath it, then the two of them made their quiet way all the way down to the Slytherin common room. For the first time in a month, Draco did not dread walking through that door, and dreaded his bed even less, for tonight, he would not be cold. 

As soon as the door was closed, Potter tore off the Cloak and dragged Draco back into a devastating kiss that encompassed every overwhelming emotion Draco had felt over the past four weeks. There was as much teeth as there was tongue; in no time at all his lips felt raw and sensitive, and still he didn’t stop. In a flurry of movement they pulled off one another’s cloaks and scarves, toed off their shoes, and Draco even managed to grab Potter’s jumper and yank it off over his head before Potter was pushing him back toward the bed.

Potter crawled on top of him, between Draco’s legs. He could instantly feel the hardness of Potter’s cock when their hips slotted together, making him pull in a shuddering breath as he pulled Potter down to crash their mouths together again. But Potter only indulged him a few moments before he was breaking away, hands tugging Draco’s shirt off and then removing his own. They came back together messily, and broke apart once more with panting breaths to remove the rest. It didn’t even seem to occur to them to hesitate, and it was only a feeble voice inside his head that made Draco wonder whether he was comfortable being completely naked in front of Potter in this new body—or at _all_ , for that matter. But he must have been comfortable with it, because he was helping, he was _frantic_ with the need to be close to Potter, as physically, intimately close as possible, as if he might disappear again to the Weasleys’ house and leave Draco to his cold, lonely bedroom once again, where the only memory of Potter’s warmth was a faint trace of his smell lingering on Draco’s pillows.

Suddenly the only thing covering either of them was their underwear, Potter in loose-fitting boxers and Draco in a flimsy pair of knickers that were already damp, he could _feel_ it, and he thought Potter could tell, too, where they were pressed together down there, barely anything at all separating the stiff, thick line of his cock from the needy place between Draco’s legs. It seemed absurd that just this morning Draco had been adamantly avoiding anything to do with Potter. That a month ago he had been furious with him, _hated_ him, had smashed his own mirror trying to hex him.

In fact, this dance they were doing seemed to be never-ending. As Potter sucked his way across Draco’s neck, hips rolling slowly, _deliberately_ against Draco’s pussy, Draco thought about how many times in the past few months he and Potter had volleyed back and forth between fiery, obscene loathing and a carnal, fathoms-deep attraction. It made Draco feel weary with it, exhausted, and most of all, utterly dazed. It required too much energy to keep up, to remember where they stood, what he was supposed to be feeling at any given moment. It was so much easier to stop thinking completely, to just give into the delicious friction of their bodies moving against each other, to wrap his arms around Harry’s neck, legs around his waist, and cling to him like Harry was the only thing keeping him alive.

 _Harry. Harry Harry Harry_ …

“Harry,” he breathed, vaguely aware of the way the word tasted both foreign and sweet on his tongue. He hated it and he loved it and he never wanted to stop saying it. “ _Harry_ …” It came out as an elongated whimper, nails digging into the warm, leanly-muscled expanse of Harry’s back. And Harry, he must have noticed, because his hands were suddenly vice-like on Draco’s hips, pulling him into the rocking movement and tearing a gasp out of his throat. 

“Tell me what you want, Draco,” Harry said into his ear. His voice was pitched low and tweaked a chord of deep arousal within Draco. “What do you need?”

“You,” was all Draco could manage to gasp out, flushing so hard at this wanton admission that it spread all the way down his neck, and god, he didn’t even _care_. Because Potter— _Harry_ —needed to know. He needed to understand how Draco’s insides were on fire, how every last inch of his body seemed to be shrieking out its licentious demand for contact. “ _Touch_ me. Do _something_.”

“Easy,” Harry whispered soothingly, just as though he had peered directly into Draco’s mind and read his frantic thoughts. He pressed several wet, lingering kisses just beneath the line of Draco’s jaw, adding, “I’ll do anything you want. I’ve got you. Just relax.”

So Draco let his eyes slip closed and took in a deep, steadying breath as Harry started mouthing his way down Draco’s torso. His mouth was hot and wet and his teeth were sharp where he nipped and licked teasingly around sensitive nipples, leaving them feeling tight and hard when he moved on, lips skimming across quivering muscle down to the line of Draco’s knickers, where without hesitation Harry boldly pressed his searing-hot tongue against Draco’s pussy through the fabric. Draco keened and arched and fisted the sheets beneath him, and all the while Harry mouthed at him shamelessly, dampening the material further and driving Draco to the very brink of madness in his need for more.

When Harry finally moved to pull Draco’s knickers off altogether, Draco could think of nothing to do besides help. Because nothing could be better than this— _nothing_. This seemed deliriously to be the pinnacle of every desire Draco had ever had, and Merlin help him, it had come in the shape of Harry bloody Potter.

The cool air of his dungeon dormitory hit his wet pussy and made him gasp, but before he had time to really register the sensation, Harry was already on him again, slicing his tongue through Draco’s pussy and flicking at his swollen clit. Draco’s hips twitched and one hand grasped madly for Harry’s hair, but by then he was already kissing his way back up Draco’s chest, and suddenly there were fingers rubbing against him down there, slipping easily between his labia and dragging across his clenching hole. 

“Do you want my fingers?” Harry asked against the skin of his neck. 

“ _God_ , yes,” Draco breathed. He only had a moment to be glad he’d decided to use a hair-removal charm yesterday (for he’d found early on that he detested trying to keep fastidiously clean down there with a bunch of hair to work around) before Harry’s middle finger was breaching his entrance and pushing inside of him. It was utterly unlike anything he’d ever experienced before—similar in nature to the way it felt to be fingered in his arse, but at the same time wholly different in a way it was difficult to pinpoint. He could feel the sponginess of his walls contracting around those thick fingers, and of course, it was frictionless in a way getting his arse fingered never could have been thanks to his brand-new self-lubricating abilities.

And perhaps it also had something to do with the person fingering him—not some near-stranger in a foreign country, but Potter. _Harry_.

“God, you’re tight,” Harry groaned, plucking another string of arousal low in Draco’s belly.

Unable to help himself, Draco smirked up at Harry, pushing the thick mess of his fringe back from his forehead and drinking in his face hungrily. “Yes, well, it’s only my arse anyone’s ever fucked before, isn’t it?” 

Harry looked exactly as surprised by this response as Draco had hoped and he let out a gleeful little laugh, only to have it cut off by Harry’s mouth.

“You’re such a pervert, Potter, _honestly_ ,” Draco mumbled against his lips, still chuckling, and he could feel Harry grinning as well. “It’s far too easy to provoke you.” 

His smug grin disappeared in a flash when Harry retaliated by sneaking a second finger in, making Draco’s mouth fall open into a perfect O as his head hit the pillows, hips lifting as Harry’s fingers slid more deeply inside of him, the stinging pain of the stretch lasting only a minute before it began to fade into a humming pleasure which made his belly coil ever more tightly.

“I thought it was Harry now,” Harry said cheekily, moving his fingers deliberately in and out, a slow burn that Draco was absolutely sure would drive him to lunacy before long. “You were moaning it so prettily just a few minutes ago—” 

“Less talking, more fucking, Potter,” Draco snapped, although even he could hear the strain in his voice, the lack of any real fire. Harry must have heard this, because a beaming, highly amused smile appeared on his face. Draco despised how good it looked there.

He cried out helplessly when Harry pushed his fingers in more forcefully than before, and from then on it didn’t slow, steadily picking up in pace until he was all but slamming them in, making slick, squelching sounds each time they pressed relentlessly back in. At some point, Harry’s fingers curled and touched something deep inside of him that made him gasp and twitch, and Harry’s free hand was suddenly holding him down by his hips.

“P-Potter, I’m…that’s…” He tried to articulate the pressure building in his groin, the way it felt like he was two seconds away from bursting out of his skin like it was nothing more substantial than some fabric sewn shoddily together. But Harry didn’t stop; in fact, he redoubled his efforts, and moments later a wave of euphoria swallowed Draco whole, starting from somewhere deep inside his gut and radiating outwards to the tips of his fingers, making his body twitch and convulse and contract frenetically around Harry’s unrelenting fingers, a guttural moan ripping from his throat in the shape of Harry’s name.

Shivering and with the feeling that his limbs had turned to rubber, the enormity of the orgasm began to fade within a minute or two, Draco panting shamelessly where he’d fallen back against the pillows, chest rising and falling shallowly. Harry was on top of him within moments, peppering kisses across his throat, damp now with perspiration.

“You look so good when you come,” Harry said, warm hands sliding obsessively up and down Draco’s sides. On his right hand, Draco could feel the wetness of his pussy on Harry’s fingers. It was shockingly arousing. “Not that you don’t always look good, but that was so fucking hot.” 

Draco smiled serenely, preening under the reverence in Harry’s voice, but another weak moan was pulled out of him when he felt fingers between his legs again, gently caressing. 

“Potter, I already came,” he whined, wriggling his hips to get away from the sensation, which was just this side of too much while he was still sensitive. 

“You know, some women can have multiple orgasms one after another,” Harry informed him, that cheeky grin back on his lips. “And since for the moment you’re in a woman’s body…” 

“What?” Draco’s eyes snapped open, the lingering shivers just beginning to subside fully. “How would you know that?”

Harry lifted a brow, and Draco’s cheeks colored. Perhaps he didn’t want to know how Harry knew that, after all.

“You are _such_ —”

“A pervert, yes, I’ve gathered,” Harry said, even as he slid his fingers back between Draco’s labia. “Shall we find out if that applies to you?”

It should have been irritating, the audacity Harry had to push his fingers back inside of Draco’s sore hole—except that instead of irritating it was _blissfully_ good. Draco whimpered pitifully and gave into the sensation, which was one part _too much_ and two parts not even close to enough.

“That’s it,” Harry whispered, his blazing viridian eyes fixated on the place where his fingers were dipping in and out, slow now and with a worshipful sort of deliberation. Within minutes Draco was rolling his hips into the movement again, a new pressure building deep in his gut that was somehow both slower and more enormous than last time.

The moment his next thought entered Draco’s head, it seemed to skip the filtration process and jump directly from his brain to his mouth:

“Fuck me,” he gasped, reaching down to grab Harry’s wrist with a clammy palm, halting the movement of his hand. “I want you to fuck me, Potter.”

Harry’s mouth dropped open in a satisfying display of disbelief. Somewhere underneath the thick haze of lust in his head, Draco was able to feel immensely pleased by his ability to keep Harry on his toes even now, even like this.

“Draco…” he began, fingers hesitating, buried deep inside Draco. Draco groaned and circled his hips.

“ _Fuck me, Potter_ ,” he said again, with more conviction now. _Demanding_ , even 

“How is it you manage to sound like a brat even when you’re asking me to fuck you?”

“Very funny,” Draco drawled, and it struck him as endlessly amusing that they were capable of slipping into this familiar banter regardless of the situation. Harry must have been struck by it in the same way, because he was grinning in spite of his words. “Some time this century would be spectacular.” 

But Harry’s inherently noble nature was shining through the playfulness now. He looked highly conflicted.

“Draco, are you sure?”

“What, are you afraid your cock is too _big_ for me?” he sniped. 

“That’s obviously not what I’m concerned about,” Harry said, an eyebrow lifted like he was less than amused by the easily-discernable attempt at deflection. “I just don’t wanna do something you think you want in the moment only for you to be—” 

“Merlin’s beard, Potter, fine, _yes_ , I’m sure, I’m absolutely positive,” he said, cheeks on fire. “I’m not going to regret it, alright? I _want_ this, I wouldn’t be asking for it if I didn’t. Now take off your Utterly Noble Hero crown for a couple minutes and _fuck me already._ ”

That seemed to do it. A fire ignited in Harry’s eyes which hadn’t been there before.

 _Predictable Potter_ , Draco thought fondly, watching as Harry stripped himself of his last article of clothing, those moronic, Gryffindor-red boxers, and let them fall to the floor. A bubble of anxious energy had appeared in Draco’s stomach, but it was more anticipation than it was true anxiety. Yes, this was scary in its newness, and even two months ago he would have shied frantically away from the idea of using his new body so completely. And yes, sometimes he still had difficulty wrapping his head around the idea that he might be trapped in this body forever—except that right now, beneath Harry, filled as he was with lust and anticipation, he found that for the first time since he’d been hit with that hex, he wasn’t _angry_ at this body. For the first time, it wasn’t _a_ body, but _his_ body. It was foreign and confusing, but becoming less so with each passing day, and wasn’t it wonderful to discover that even in its strangeness he was still capable of feeling such exquisite pleasure? Wasn’t it _something_ that he’d made it this far, that he was learning, exploring, opening himself up and, most important of all, _trying_ to accept?

After all, _wanting_ to change back was never going to be enough to make that change happen. And in the meantime, well…perhaps this didn’t have to be so horrible. 

“Draco,” Harry’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. Draco found his eyes and then looked down, heart climbing into this throat when he caught sight of Harry’s thick, straining cock, bobbing in midair with a bead of pre-come leaking out of the slit. The head was an angry red, and for all the sarcasm that had been in Draco’s voice when he’d ribbed Harry about thinking himself too big, Draco was reminded now that the size of his cock was, indeed, quite impressive. Nothing impossible, of course, but…really rather large. His hole clenched in anticipation of the stretch. “Tell me one more time. Tell me you’re sure.”

Draco spread his legs wider around Harry’s hips, tilting up toward his cock. Harry made a strangled sound in his throat. 

“If you wait much longer, Potter, you won’t be able to prove your multiple-orgasm theory.”

A smirk twitched at Harry’s lips and he bent forward, one arm like a pillar on the side of Draco’s head, the other gripping his cock at the base. Draco’s heart started pounding so hard he could feel it in his fingertips. He bit back a gasp at the first touch, Harry’s cock gliding neatly between his pussy lips, bumping against his clit each time Harry rocked his hips forward, coating his cock with Draco’s juices.

And then the thick head was pressing against his hole, stretched on just two fingers, and god, he was being _split open_ , the burning pain overshadowed by the minutest degree by the overwhelming pleasure of the act. He thought he could feel every vein, every dip and ridge in Harry’s cock as he pressed inside an inch at a time.

“Okay?” he breathed, moving his eyes up to Draco’s face. They were wide and his pupils were blown out, and he looked somehow more open and vulnerable than Draco had ever seen him before. He was shaking very slightly, Draco could feel the vibrations where his fingers dug into Harry’s biceps. From the one time he had topped in his life, Draco knew quite well how it felt to restrain oneself from burying one’s stiff and throbbing cock into a tight channel of heat, and he marveled at the will power. 

“Good,” Draco rasped, shifting his hips a bit and letting out a pitiful whimper when he felt the rigid flesh of Harry’s cock slide deeper inside. “God, so good, Potter, that feels… _so good_ …”

“It doesn’t hurt?”

“Of course it fucking hurts,” he bit out, digging his nails in deeper and finding that he liked the way it seemed to spur Harry on. “Don’t stop.”

A look of exasperated amusement crossed Harry’s face.

He didn’t stop. 

Draco took deep, calming breaths as Harry continued pushing inside, something that seemed, impossibly, never to end. He thought he could feel it throbbing and pulsing inside of him, searingly hot against his insides, and it occurred to Draco that this must be his limit, Harry’s cock must have been stretching him as far as he could go, because when he felt Harry’s balls touch his arse, he could hardly even move. 

“Are you in all the way?” he asked weakly, trying to shift and ripping a moan out of his own throat in the process. God, he was so _full_. He didn’t think he’d ever been so full before.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. A lightly trembling hand pushed some hair off Draco’s face, and he looked up to see that Harry was watching him with something akin to worship in his eyes. It was startling in its intensity, and once he looked, he couldn’t seem to look away again. “You feel… _so good_ , Draco…”

“So do you.” Draco took in a shaky breath and let it back out before rotating his hips, squeezing his eyes shut at the burn and noting with relief that it was starting to fade. His belly was tight and he knew once Harry started going, he would quickly start building toward orgasm once more. “Please, move. Just…slow.”

Draco could see Harry steeling himself, mustering his willpower, and it wasn’t without a certain amount of awe that Draco watched him grit his teeth as he pulled back, sliding his cock a few inches out of Draco’s clenching hole, and then pressing laboriously back in. This was how Draco became used to the feeling—with short, languid, rocking thrusts that loosened him little by little and seemed at the same time to be tearing down Harry’s solid wall of resolve. 

It was when Harry’s cock touched that same deep something inside of him that his fingers had brushed against before that Draco forgot about the pain altogether. He drew in a sharp gasp and hooked a leg more securely around Harry’s waist, pulling him in and sobbing out his pleasure without even _caring_ how he looked, how he sounded, or that he was so exquisitely and shamelessly bared beneath him.

“Better?” Harry asked, and when Draco nodded, he pulled his cock out all the way, until all Draco was aware of was an aching emptiness—and then cried out when Harry sank back inside in one long, brutal thrust. Draco reached up and pulled Harry down into a frantic kiss as he found a steady, rocking rhythm, fucking Draco with hard, measured strokes that rather quickly lost their finesse as Harry descended into his own haze of lust. 

“Harry,” Draco murmured against his lips, squeezing his thighs around him, fingers scrabbling against Harry’s damp chest, slick with sweat. Behind them, the bed’s headboard had begun tapping the wall with every thrust forward. “Harry, I…” There was an urgent desperation behind his voice, like some deep part of him knew what he needed so badly to say but couldn’t quite force it out. 

“I know,” Harry breathed, moving down to Draco’s neck and mouthing up to his ear. Draco let out a wrecked sob; his chest seemed suddenly on the verge of exploding with suppressed emotion. The word he needed to say flitted haphazardly across his mind, but he didn’t let it out, swallowed it hectically back and instead dug his nails so deeply into Harry’s arms he felt the prickling warmth of blood. Harry fucked into him sharply, hot breath panting out against Draco’s ear. His voice was half-strangled when he muttered, “Me too.” 

And just like that, Draco’s head fell back on the pillows, his eyes snapped shut, his body bowed beneath Harry, and the next time that thick, pulsing cock rammed into him and pressed against his G-spot, his whole body shuddered with the enormity of an orgasm that lit every one of his nerve endings on fire. Harry didn’t stop—he continued battering his cock into Draco as the pleasure swelled and finally peaked, ripping a silent scream out of him as his body shook with paroxysms of unimaginable pleasure and a pulse of fluid squirted out of him, around Harry’s prick. Draco lost track of everything as his body shivered its way through the last of the shockwaves of rippling sensation, toes curling and hips rocking weakly, mindlessly.  

“I’m gonna come,” Harry gasped, hips stuttering where he was still thrusting into Draco’s limp body, clearly at the end of his self-control and hanging on by his fingertips out of some noble desire to make sure Draco had come first. “ _Fuck_ , Draco, I’m—”

“Come inside me,” Draco said, shaky fingers moving to push damp hair away from Harry’s forehead again, the scar especially red from exertion. “Please, Harry, I wanna feel it, I wanna feel you—”

Harry moaned brokenly into Draco’s skin, and a moment later he had abandoned the rest of his restraint—he slammed his hips into Draco’s forcefully, burying his cock into Draco’s tight heat with rapid movements, pumping into him over and over and _over_ again until Draco felt the throbbing shaft still deep inside of him and start pulsing; a second later a hot, wet explosion coated Draco’s insides with what he knew to be Harry’s seed. This struck Draco in an unexpectedly powerful way, and as Harry clung to him, trembling as he rocked weakly into Draco through his orgasm, Draco found himself running soothing hands up and down Harry’s back, stroking him gently as he gasped and shook and came back down.

They stayed this way for a long couple of minutes, sweaty bodies pressed together, Harry still trembling faintly and Draco running fingers through his sweaty hair. He could feel Harry’s come leaking out around his cock, and he found that he didn’t hate it. Maybe even liked it. Eventually Harry lifted his head and, after meeting his eyes, he caught Draco’s mouth in a kiss that shook the whole foundation of Draco’s world.

“How’re you feeling?” Harry asked when he pulled away, words sounding loose, voice low and rough. “I got a little…rough toward the end there.” Draco passed the pad of his thumb across Harry’s lower lip, smiling serenely to himself.

“It’s okay,” Draco told him quietly, shifting his hips a little and hissing. “I liked it. When you let go, I mean.” His hand moved to cup Harry’s cheek, sure that he looked the way Harry had looked before—reverential, worshipful—and found he didn’t even have it within himself to care. Maybe he _did_ feel reverential. How could he not, after all? He’d never experienced sex the way he had with Harry just now, and he knew, deep down, that this had nothing at all to do with the body he currently occupied. 

Harry kissed him again, slowly, and as he did he pulled his hips back, slipping his cock out of Draco’s hole. Draco felt what was sure to be the rest of Harry’s come start dribbling out of him.

“Hang on,” Harry mumbled, climbing off of Draco and leaving the bed. He dug around in the pile of clothes they’d left near the door, retrieved his wand, and when he returned, he cast a Vanishing Spell. Draco immediately felt the slickness between his legs disappear, finding to his horror that he had quite liked the way it felt as soon as it was gone. Setting the wand down on the bedside table, Harry crawled on top of him again and buried his face in Draco’s neck. “I would have really liked to eat my come out of your pussy,” he said, making Draco’s belly tighten again agonizingly. “But the sooner you get rid of it, the more effective it is.”

“You’re a barbarian, Potter,” Draco sighed, nothing but fondness in his voice, and when Harry grinned, he did too. He raked his fingers through Harry’s hair mindlessly. “And I’m not going to get _pregnant_ , if that’s what you mean.”

“I’d really rather avoid having to find out either way.” Moving off of Draco, Harry fell onto his back with a sigh that sounded deeply content. Draco smiled to himself and curled into Harry’s side.

“Potter?” Draco said after a minute, when both of their breathing had slowed. Harry turned to him with impossibly bright eyes. “I really missed you.” 

Harry’s smile faltered and he shifted onto his side, so they were facing one another. His eyebrows dipped and he searched Draco’s face—Draco felt his cheeks turning rapidly pink under this scrutiny. 

“I really missed you too, Draco,” he said softly. He eyes dipped to the Golden Snitch necklace still dangling from Draco’s neck. “More than I knew how to tell you in that note.”

Finding that he could think of nothing suitable to say in response to this, Draco merely reached for one of Harry’s hands and twined their fingers together. Harry smiled and huddled closer, until their legs tangled together and Draco felt his heart in his throat.

“You’ll stay tonight?” he whispered.

“Draco,” Harry said, and the tone of his voice was suddenly somber. He leaned in and pressed their lips together briefly. “I’d stay here every night if you said that’s what you wanted.”

Draco nodded. His throat felt tight and clogged up with emotion, and he was afraid if he said anything else his voice would shake. He thought of the words he’d needed so badly to say ten or fifteen minutes ago, when Harry been buried inside of him and the emotion had been so huge he’d felt he must suffocate under its weight. He thought, too, of what Harry had said when he couldn’t get it out, that breathless “me too” that could have meant anything, except Draco _knew_ what it meant.

Looking silently into each other’s eyes, Draco thought he could see Harry remembering the same thing. If he was, however, he didn’t mention it, and for that Draco was grateful.

In a silence that was louder than any words, the two of them eventually maneuvered their way under the blanket, and Harry wandlessly put out the few burning candles around the room. Draco burrowed into his side and felt Harry slip an arm around him. 

“G’night, Draco,” Harry whispered into his hair. 

And Draco, who felt quite as though he hadn’t slept at all the last month Harry had been gone, welcomed the gentle, caressing fingers of oblivion as they pulled his tired body and exhausted mind into a blissful unconsciousness that was, for once, not plagued by nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/)!


	20. Chapter 20

Harry climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room at a quarter past six the next morning and found Hermione poring over an essay. He froze at the entrance, feeling absurdly as though he’d just been caught sneaking around. Hermione stared back, naked surprise on her face, followed closely by confusion, and then amused understanding.

“Well, well, well,” she lilted as Harry took a chair beside hers, halfway between frowning and laughing. “How was Slytherin?”

“Oh, shut up, Hermione,” Harry said, but a smile had crept onto his face, as well. His heart was too full to be anything but good-humored. He’d replayed the whole thing in his head several dozen times since he’d woken up, snogged an adorably half-asleep Draco senseless, and then left for Gryffindor Tower, and yet it remained difficult to believe he had actually _shagged_ him. “You’re not going to believe what Ron did.” 

“I know what he did,” she grinned. “He told me shortly after it happened; I only hoped Malfoy would actually go through with it. Ron’s really growing up this year, isn’t he?”

“We all are,” Harry said with a nod, and in the spirit of proving himself right, tamped down on the part of himself which started to swell indignantly at the knowledge that Ron and Hermione had orchestrated something behind his back. It had, after all, turned out rather wonderfully. “I’m just trying to picture how Ron managed to corner him between lessons, y'know? And where the hell was I, by the way?”

Strangely, a quizzical look passed across Hermione’s face. Maybe nobody else would have noticed, but Harry could plainly see her start trying to put something together quickly in her head. This meant that either he hadn’t picked up on something obvious, or else he was missing an entire chunk of the story.

“All right, spit it out,” he said, lifting an unimpressed eyebrow at her. “You look like you’re about to tip-toe around telling me something, so just get it over with. What am I missing?”

Hermione looked slightly conflicted when she said, “Malfoy didn’t … tell you what happened?” 

This cryptic question left Harry feeling infinitely more annoyed. “Apparently not,” he deadpanned. “He just told me Ron caught up to him between lessons. Would you mind clueing me the rest of the way in, then?”

“Well … Ron pulled someone off him, Harry.” Harry gaped at her. “Remember when Boothby asked you to stay after our lesson yesterday morning? I had Arithmancy after Defence, I went to class, but you and Ron have that free hour. In fact, I have that class _with_ Malfoy, and he never showed up. Ron said he was taking a shortcut back up here and ran into him. The way Ron tells it, some Hufflepuff he didn’t recognize had him cornered.” 

“What, you mean like another Kenny Helstrom?” he snapped, fear and anger bubbling to the surface; _why_ hadn’t Draco told him? And Ron and Hermione … they’d known _all day_. “Did neither of you think to mention this to me? _Seriously_?” 

“Well, of course we _thought_ about it,” she said, sounding anxious. He could see her silently making up her mind, although the way she bit her lip told him she was going against her better judgment. “Honestly, Harry, I … I _told_ Ron not to tell you, he _was_ going to. I stopped him. I mean, I figured Malfoy would anyway. If you want to be angry with me, that’s fine, I can handle it. I stand by my decision. I just thought that … that for _once_ , maybe it was about time somebody saved _you_ instead of the other way round.” Whatever retort had been ready on Harry’s tongue died at these words, an iron band clamping down around his heart. There were, he saw, tears shimmering in Hermione’s eyes. “I knew if we told you what had happened you’d lose your mind trying to figure out who it was, and you’ve … you’ve been so unhappy, Harry … when Ron told me he thought he might’ve convinced Malfoy to talk to you …” She wiped beneath her eye, where a fat tear had rolled down onto her cheek. Having been wholly unprepared for this turn of events, Harry watched Hermione with a helpless feeling in his limbs. 

“Hermione…” he started, but she shook her head, and he reluctantly stayed silent. 

“It’s just so unfair.” Her voice was watery and unstable, and Harry, who had never really been any good at following the enigmatic, labyrinthine emotional pathways of women, sat there feeling startled.

“ _What’s_ unfair?” he prompted gently.

“Just … your whole life!” she suddenly burst out. Harry blinked owlishly and had to consciously repress a confused smile. 

“That’s not really news, though, is it?” 

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” she sighed, sniffling a little and wiping away another tear. He took one of her hands and squeezed. Hermione squeezed back and smiled at him wetly. “I just thought maybe it would get easier after the war, then lo and behold, it's nothing of the sort. The one person in all this aftermath who manages to make you happy is also the person who’s always been the best at hurting you, and that's on top of all the ... the _other_ stuff ...”

“Hermione,” Harry said softly, circling his thumb across the soft skin of her hand, “I’m no stranger to pain. You have to stop making yourself sick about me. You know me … I get through it, every time.”

“I know you do, Harry. You’re the most resilient person I’ve ever known, but that doesn’t mean you should have to endure it over and over again, _especially_ not now, when it’s supposed to have been done with finally. That’s why I made Ron promise not to tell you — I didn’t want you to have vengeance on your mind. I didn’t want you to go seeking out Malfoy or that Hufflepuff before he had a chance to seek you out first. You’re always the one saving people, but who saves _you_ , Harry?”

He didn’t know whether it was supposed to be a rhetorical question, but the answer came readily to his lips: “ _You_ do, ‘Mione. Do you think for one second that I will _ever_ forget the way you stayed with me last year, even when _Ron_ left?” He squeezed her hands, dipping his head to catch her eyes again when she’d dropped them to her lap. “Do you think I’ll ever forget the number of times you’ve pulled me out of the fire?” He shook his head, realizing suddenly that this was long overdue. “You’re not just my best friend, Hermione — you’re my sister. While I’m busy saving everyone else’s arses, you’re busy saving mine. And I guess I’ve never really said thank you, but I _should_ have. So _thank you_ for always being there no matter what. Please believe me when I tell you that I’m okay. I’m …  _more_ than okay, because as you seem to have guessed, Draco did come find me, and I just spent the night with him.”

Harry’s vision was suddenly obscured by a large amount of bushy hair and he laughed as he wrapped his arms around Hermione in return, running his hand over her back soothingly. It occurred to him that while he’d been trying to find his own way through the post-traumatic stress the war had left him with — something he’d found he preferred discussing with Draco — he hadn’t considered whether Hermione might have needed _him_. They had shared something last year during those long, terrible weeks alone and on the run, something that neither of them would ever share with another person, he was quite sure. And _she’d_ been the one there with him when he’d seen his parents’ graves and the corpse of his family home for the first time in his life.

 _She’d_ been the one to put an arm around his waist and a head on his shoulder and offer comfort when he’d needed it so badly. When the startling, disturbing thought that he just about wished he was dead along with his parents had cropped up and scared the living shit out of him.

“Merlin, I’m really sorry, Hermione,” he said into her hair. “I’ve been a shit friend to you this year, haven’t I?”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Hermione whispered fiercely, pulling away from him and pushing some hair out of her damp face. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Harry, not one bit. I didn’t mean to get so _emotional_ just now, I just … I worry about you so much, and I felt so helpless, not being able to help over the holidays when I knew you were hurting about Malfoy. Maybe part of me hadn’t really thought it would work, that Malfoy wouldn’t actually go try and talk to you, so seeing you walk in here with that grin on your face … it’s such a relief. Oh, I want to hear _everything_ , did you two talk it all over, then?”

“Er — kind of. He apologized, if you can believe that.” He smiled brightly when Hermione’s jaw dropped open. “But to tell you the truth, we didn’t do _that_ much talking.” 

At first, Hermione merely grinned and rolled her eyes, but at the meaningful look on Harry’s face, naked shock replaced it.

“You didn’t … I mean, you’re just talking about snogging, aren’t you?”

“Um … no, I’m not.”

“You slept with him?!”

Harry pressed his lips together, torn between laughter and wanting to tell her to shut up before someone heard them and came down into the common room.

“Are you about to reprimand me for this? I can’t tell.”

“Harry!” Her cheeks were flushed red and she looked to be fighting to remain stern, but the sparkle in her eyes gave her away. “Of course I’m not going to repri _mand_ you, I’m just … goodness, I really didn’t expect that! You’re sure it was … you know, a good idea? Only sleeping with someone can sort of … heighten emotions, and you and Malfoy are — erm —” 

“Prone to outbursts as it is?” he supplied, to which Hermione rather guiltily shrugged in agreement. “Honestly, I dunno if it was a good idea. I was … hesitant, you know, even in the moment, but he … erm … he was quite … insistent …” He trailed off, tongue finding his cheek as he saw color rising steadily over Hermione’s face. 

“Right,” she said, eyes a bit wide, and she’d averted her gaze, looking too embarrassed to meet Harry’s eye. 

“Regardless, though,” he went on, “I mean, whether or not it was a good idea, I don’t regret it.” A flush to match Hermione’s rose on his cheeks. “I realized something when I was with him last night. It scared the hell out of me at first, but then I also realized it had been coming for a really long time.”

“What did you realize?” she asked slowly.

“I’m in love with him,” Harry said simply, without a trace of humor or guilt or ambivalence. His heart pounded with the admission, for he hadn’t said it out loud since it had occurred to him, but it felt right. It felt _true_. Even Hermione’s look of blunt shock couldn’t make his certainty waver. And that, more than anything else, made Harry absolutely sure of himself. “And I know you were _just_ saying sleeping with someone can heighten emotions, but it was before that. It was as soon as he walked out onto the Astronomy Tower. And do you wanna know the wonkiest bit of the whole thing?”

“That wasn’t it?” Hermione said breathlessly. He could see with plain certainty that she was biting back a million things she wanted to say.

“No. The wonkiest bit is that I want him back in his real body. I want _Malfoy_ , you know?” To his amazement — and endless encouragement — he saw a nascent smile begin to form on Hermione’s face. “Does that sound crazy?” 

“Harry,” Hermione said, leaning forward and piercing him with a probing stare to rival the ones Dumbledore used to give him. “Breaking into Gringotts and escaping on a _dragon_ sounds crazy. The fact that the Deathly Hallows _exist_ sounds psychotic.” She paused, lifting her eyebrows. “But realizing you’ve fallen in love with Malfoy and want to see him back in his real body? _That_ is not crazy.”

Harry grinned helplessly. “You believe me, then? You don’t think I’m getting ahead of myself?”

“I think I haven’t seen you looking this happy in a very long time, and that’s enough proof for me. Is it, er — I mean, do you want to talk about … you know, your attraction to the idea of Malfoy as a male again? How are you feeling about that?”

Once again, an answer came to Harry’s lips as readily as if he’d prepared it ahead of time: “It’s new, but it doesn’t bother me. Honestly? I’m more excited about the thought than I am confused by it, I guess. It’s not really his gender I’m thinking about, I just wanna see him again the way I’ve always known him, if that makes sense.”

“Perfect sense,” Hermione assured him, but it was her smile that set him at ease. “You’ve fallen for _Malfoy_ , not the way he looks, even if the appearance of a girl helped initially. And as pretty as he is this way, it isn’t _him_.”

“Exactly,” Harry exhaled, nearly sagging with relief to have it laid out in words that actually made sense, but before he could say anything else, Parvati had come down into the common room from the girls’ staircase. She looked exhausted, but her smile was big and genuine when she spotted Harry and Hermione. 

Harry’s insides squirmed when he thought about how little sleep she must have been getting since Lavender died — if it had been Ron or Hermione, Harry was unsure whether he’d have been able to move on from it at all. 

“Hi, Harry,” Parvati said, coming over to them and sitting down with an armful of books. “I knew you’d be down here doing homework when I saw your empty bed, Hermione. Can you help me out with our Potions essay?”

“That’s what I’m working on, too,” Hermione said, indicating the work she’d been doing before Harry had returned. “You’re welcome to look it over if you’d like, it’s almost finished.”

“I haven’t even started that,” Harry said morosely. 

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” said Parvati. Hermione pursed her lips but didn’t comment. “I don’t even know why I decided to take it at N.E.W.T.-level, honestly. I _barely_ scraped the E I got on my O.W.L., and that was only because Padma tutored me for, like, five hours straight the night before. You know, she heard Professor Slughorn telling McGonagall that only _two_ people in our whole year are on track to receive an O?”

“Who are they?” Hermione asked immediately, sitting up in her chair with blazing eyes. It was so authentically old Hermione that Harry let go a bark of laughter he couldn’t hold in. She shot a glare at him before turning back to Parvati. 

“Well, you’re obviously one of them, Hermione,” Parvati said with a grin. “My Galleons would be on Malfoy as the other, he’s always been very good at Potions, hasn’t he? Although who knows if he’s been able to keep up, dealing with that awful hex this year … sorry, Harry,” she added playfully, “I know it’s _Malfoy_ , but you _have_ to admit, that’s a pretty nasty situation he’s been put in.”

“I, er … no, yeah, I agree,” Harry said, trying to fight back his surprise at the broaching of the subject of Draco from such an unexpected source. Beside him, peripherally, he could see Hermione struggling to remain straight-faced. “I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.” 

“Harry.” Parvati leaned forward a bit, and there was suddenly a wicked gleam in her eye. Harry tensed, but tried not to let it show. “From a boy’s perspective, do you think he looks fit as a girl? I’ve been arguing with Padma about it forever. She reckons he looks like a bloody _Veela_ this way, but I don’t see how anybody could get past the fact it’s Malfoy, d’you know what I mean?” 

“I … um …”

“Of course, Theo Nott is always leering at him these days, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, I gue — wait, _what_?”

“I know, scandalous, isn’t it?” Parvati said, having apparently mistaken the look of shock on Harry’s face for an interest in what she clearly considered to be the juiciest of gossip. No doubt Lavender’s absence had left Parvati wanting for someone to discuss this with. Beside him, Hermione’s eyes had widened incrementally. “Lav and I _always_ thought Nott was a little weird, but the way he looks at Malfoy sometimes this year just gives me the downright _creeps_. If I didn’t think he was such a prat I’d almost feel sorry for him; boys can be so _gross_ , can’t they? Oh — sorry, Harry, not _you_ , of course.”

Harry waved this away. “When you say Nott’s been leering — when did you notice that?” 

“Well, it’s sort of difficult _not_ to notice, isn’t it?” she laughed, eyes twinkling. It occurred suddenly to Harry the amount of observational prowess it required to be the sort of gossip queens Lavender and Parvati had always been. He wondered vaguely what kinds of wild secrets she had tucked away in her head about their peers. “Just watch him in the lessons we have with the Slytherins, his eyes nearly _always_ find their way to Malfoy’s arse, and his tits if Nott’s feeling bold, apparently. I can’t tell if Malfoy knows — on one hand, he doesn’t seem the type who would like being looked at like a piece of meat that way, but then again, Malfoy always _has_ liked attention.”

Harry looked sideways at Hermione only to find her looking back at him with a muted ambivalence. He knew without knowing _how_ he knew that she was perfectly aware of the way his chest had just _exploded_ with a furious possessiveness.

“I seriously doubt he’d be happy about being gawked at,” Harry said hotly, and then cleared his throat when he realized how close he’d come to growling those words. Parvati appeared taken aback. “I mean … he’s probably already uncomfortable enough as it is.” 

Parvati nodded, but her eyebrows were faintly drawn and she looked contemplative. “I agree,” she said finally. “Like I said, Nott creeps me out a bit. Everyone is so adamant it’s Malfoy who should be in Azkaban, but if you ask me, Theodore Nott is the one I’d be afraid to meet in a dark alleyway.”

Before the conversation could get any further than that, Hermione took the reigns and steered them back in the direction of their homework, to which Harry had no opposition. Still, he was grateful Parvati had brought her observations about Theodore Nott to his attention, and an hour later when Ron and Seamus came down together, it was Harry who dragged Ron and Hermione down to breakfast, leaving Parvati and Seamus alone.

When he looked back before climbing out of the portrait hole, he saw Parvati beaming at him and he flashed her a wink.

 

* * *

 

 Draco had always loved Potions, but his enjoyment today was due not to his interest in the subject, but the fact that he could remain standing while he worked.

He’d been sore for two days now, and every time he sat down that spot between his legs throbbed and stung. Draco went back and forth between wanting to scream out of frustration and going utterly red in the face each time it reminded him of the way Harry had looked pounding into him so ruthlessly, and his cunt subsequently flooded with warmth.

He tried to calm his racing heart as he crushed Sopophorous beans, Blaise counting out lacewing flies beside him. It was especially difficult to focus what with Harry only a few tables down, robe discarded, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, the veins in his forearms standing out against muscle. Every once in a while he would push a sweaty clump of hair out of his face, little beads of perspiration from the fumes dotting his tanned skin. Draco wanted nothing more or less than to strip him of the rest of his clothing and run his tongue over every last inch.

A hand on his lower back startled him so badly he jumped, thinking for one wild moment that it was Harry and he had completely lost his marbles — but it was gone after a lingering moment and Draco turned his head to see Theo standing there, a subdued smirk on his face.

“What the hell are you doing?” Draco snapped. Beside him, Blaise looked up from what he was doing and leveled Theo with an indecipherable expression, but said nothing.

“Relax, Draco,” Theo chuckled. “Do you have an extra couple Sopophorous beans? Tracey’s destroyed most of ours.”

“There’s a supply cupboard literally ten feet away.”

“But obviously I decided to check if you had any first, didn’t I?” Theo responded smoothly. “Jumpy today, aren’t we?” His gaze swept their tabletop, moved back to Draco briefly, and then with another grin he left and disappeared into the supply cupboard. Draco looked over at Blaise, but he was back to being determinedly focused on the lacewing flies.

Almost magnetically he sought out Harry next, and he found those green eyes already on him.

“Blaise,” Draco said, more in an effort to distract himself than because he felt like having a conversation. Blaise made a noncommittal noise as he began transferring the flies into a mortar. “Have you noticed Pansy avoiding me since term started?”

Blaise looked up at this, vague surprise on his face.

“Yes, actually,” he said slowly, and then reached for the pestle, expression clouding again. “And I asked her about it, but she’s denying doing it. Might just be that she’s finally starting to realize she’s going to fail all her N.E.W.T.s now we’re on the other side of Christmas.”

“It’s just very unlike her.” Setting his knife aside with the last of the beans drained of their juice, Draco set the bowl aside and turned Blaise, unable to do anything more until the lacewing flies had been turned to powder. “Usually when she starts getting worried about exams she —”

Theo had stopped on his way back to his table and leaned into Draco’s ear, cutting him off midsentence with a whispered, “Did you know one of the buttons on your shirt is undone, Draco?”

Annoyance turned to panic at the speed of light and he looked down at his blouse, visible through the gap in his robes (it was just too _hot_ in here to keep them done-up), to see that one button was, indeed, open, exposing a sliver of skin beneath his collarbones. 

His face flushed with color, but before he could say anything, Blaise had loudly dropped the pestle he was holding into the bowl of lacewing flies.

“Enough, Theo,” he said sharply. “Go back to your bloody table already.”

A few feet away, there was a piercingly loud explosion of glass, followed by a yelped, “What the _fuck_ , Harry!”

“Language, Mr. Weasley!” Slughorn called jovially from the front of the classroom. “Five points from Gryffindor! Mr. Potter, is everything all right over there?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry,” Harry said, but Draco looked over and saw that several glass vials near him had apparently exploded of their own volition, and he was yanking a shard out of his exposed forearm. 

“Saviour my arse,” Theo murmured, alerting Draco to his continued presence. Blaise’s jaw was locked. “Can’t even control his magic, can he?”

“Just because he’s got magic coming out of his ears and _you_ failed to produce even the shield form of a Patronus is no reason to sound so obviously bitter, Theo,” said Blaise harshly. “It’s pathetic.” 

“Go to hell, Zabini,” Theo bit back. He flashed Blaise two fingers and headed back to his station with Tracey. While Theo had been gone, it seemed Tracey had managed to irreversibly damage their potion, because it was now belching out thick, noxious clouds of evil-looking orange smoke.

“What the fuck was that supposed to be?” Draco demanded in a hissing whisper once Theo was out of earshot.

“Nothing,” Blaise said with a forced casualness, returning to his half-powdered flies. “I’m sick of him lately, that’s all, and I’ve had no problem letting him know.”

Draco narrowed his eyes. “Why’d you snap at him when he told me my button was undone?”

“Is _that_ what he said?” Blaise laughed darkly. “Figures.” 

“All right, what the hell is going on?” Draco snatched the mortar away, raising his eyebrows at Blaise. “I’ll take a zero on this potion, Blaise, don’t test me. _What_ is going on?” 

Blaise’s fist tightened on the pestle for a moment and then he was setting it down on the tabletop, face once again impossible to read. Damn him, but he had his poker-face down to a goddamned art.

“You _really_ haven’t noticed, Draco?” 

Draco’s stomach clenched. Yes, he _had_ noticed. However, he had tried his utmost to ignore it and pretend he _hadn’t_ noticed.

“Did he say something to you?” Draco asked, voice low and hesitant.

Blaise was silent for a moment. Then: “He asked me if I knew whether you’ve been boffing someone in secret.” Draco scoffed loudly. “I told him I seriously doubted it. I think he suspects you are, but he didn’t say with whom.”

“And what do _you_ think?”

“ _I_ don’t care,” said Blaise airily. “But I also doubted whether you wanted to shag him either way, so I told him to lay the fuck off of it.”

“Doesn’t seem to have worked, but I suppose I appreciate it nevertheless.” 

Theo’s dark appeal had never been lost on Draco; had he not been in the body of woman, had Theo been bent and trying to shag him in his real body, Draco had an inkling he might well have done it.

 _But then again_ , he thought, glancing over at Harry again, who now had a small wound in his arm where the glass had stabbed him earlier, _maybe I wouldn’t have._

He set the mortar back in front of Blaise and they finished the remainder of their potion in silence. By the end of the lesson, his thoughts had drifted away from Theo and back towards Pansy, whom he was determined to interrogate soon about her blatant avoidance.

However, this too was shifted to the back of his mind when, upon leaving the Potions classroom, someone bumped into his shoulder hard. Before he could react, a piece of parchment was stuffed into his hand, and Draco looked around to see Harry walking away. He fought hard against a grin.

“Watch where you’re going, _Potter_ ,” he called out, pleased with the wide eyes Harry turned on him. But then suddenly they were alive with delight, and the smirk that formed on his face made Draco’s pussy throb with want.

“Fuck you, Malfoy,” he said back, and while to everyone else it must have sounded simply like Harry cussing him out, to Draco it sounded a lot more like a promise.

 

* * *

 

As Harry’s note had requested, Draco snuck him into his dorm at midnight.

The instant the door closed, Harry had him pressed up against it cheek-first, Draco spluttering indignantly until Harry slipped a thigh between his legs, spreading them apart, and began mouthing at his neck.

“Potter, what the fu — _ah_!” Draco broke off on a moan when Harry’s hand cupped him suddenly through his trousers, pressing up against his needy cunt.

“Get these off,” Harry breathed, something commanding in his voice that brooked no argument. Draco, who had no problem complying, helped Harry pull them down his legs and off his feet, discarding his socks too, but before he could get his knickers off as well, Harry had already gotten on his knees behind him, pulled them aside, and prised Draco’s arse cheeks apart.

“Potter!” Draco gasped, a shudder wracking his body when he felt Harry’s thumbs pressing right up against his rim, opening the tight little bud up very slightly. He could feel Harry’s damp breath on his hole and his arms broke out in goose bumps. “W-what are you doing?” he whimpered.

“I’m eating your arse open,” Harry mumbled, and this pronouncement was followed by the hot, wet sensation of Harry’s tongue passing _hard_ over his rim. Draco mewled helplessly and felt his pussy throb and start dripping slick onto his thighs. He pushed his arse out further, earning a growl of approval from Harry, and then he was nosing even further between Draco’s legs, mouth closing over the swollen lips of Draco’s cunt, sucking briefly at his clit, and then returning to his arsehole, where he circled it maddeningly with his tongue. “And then I’m gonna fuck you stupid.”

“Holy shit, Potter,” Draco said shakily, trembling against the door and sobbing out pitifully at the first press of Harry’s tongue worming inside of him. His thumbs were still spreading Draco open immodestly, and he distinctly felt Harry pushing his spit inside with each stab of his tongue deeper inside, along with the slippery slick dripping from his pussy. His rim was loosening rapidly beneath Harry’s relentless tongue-fucking, and at some point he felt one globe of his arse released only to have Harry swipe his fingers through Draco’s cunt, gather up his juices, and slip the longest into Draco’s arse.

Draco cried out and nearly sagged against the door, but Harry dug the nails of his free hand into the meat of Draco’s arse, stilling him. 

“Don’t fucking move,” he growled, pumping his finger steadily in and out, the rhythm torturously, _excruciatingly_ slow and so, _so_ good. “Your arse is so _fucking_ tight, Draco.” 

“Please,” Draco whimpered, beyond caring what he sounded like. Harry pushed a second finger in alongside the first, pulled Draco’s arse cheek even more widely open, and passed his tongue over Draco’s stretched rim. Draco sobbed out his pleasure. “Oh god, oh, _fuck_ , Harry, _please_ …” 

It was the strangest thing, because his association with the pleasure that came from having his arse fingered was a stiff and throbbing cock, and he could have _sworn_ , each time Harry pushed his thick fingers deeper inside of him, each time he sucked at the reddened skin around his hole, coating it ever more liberally with slick, Draco could feel the stirrings of arousal not only in his dripping cunt, but in a prick that was no longer there.

He was trembling against the door when he felt Harry finally slip his fingers out and stand up, arms going around Draco’s waist and mouth finding the side of his neck once more. 

“You’re shaking,” Harry breathed. His hands crept under Draco’s shirt, skimming exasperatingly across his sensitive skin, and finally ghosting around to his back, where Harry deftly unclasped his bra.

“Yes, well, you’ve just been having a go at my arse like some sort of undomesticated beast.”

Harry’s breath was hot where he laughed against Draco’s skin, licking a stripe across his neck before unceremoniously spinning him around.

“Sounded to me like you were enjoying it,” he said, latching onto Draco’s jaw and pressing the stiffness of his cock against Draco’s thigh. His stomach _exploded_ with want.

“Of course I was _enjoying_ it, you absolute fucking _wanker_.”

“Brilliant,” Harry murmured, and proceeded to divest Draco of both shirt and bra. “Get on the bed, kitten.”

Draco spluttered incoherently at the pet name, standing there starkers, dripping wet, in front of a horrendously smug-looking Harry Potter who’d just had his tongue three fingers deep in Draco’s arse, and still managing to muster up an appropriate amount of indignity, which unfortunately did nothing to cover up the bright red spots of arousal on his cheeks.

“ _What_ did you just —” 

“ _Get on the bed_ , Draco,” Harry cut him off neatly, not without a definite note of authority in his voice. Draco’s mouth fell open, utterly unable to wrap his brain around what was going on. 

Something had happened, he thought vaguely, heart hammering noisily against his rib cage even as he looked up into Harry’s eyes — trying to discern something that remained stubbornly undiscernible at the moment — and then complied.

Something had happened and this was how Harry was dealing with it. 

Draco felt helplessly exposed sitting naked on the bed, watching with rapt attention as Harry pulled off his shirt and his jumper in one go, then took care of his denims and pants as well. Now that he’d been introduced to them so intimately, Draco could see every scar standing out white and terrifying against Harry’s dark skin as he climbed onto the mattress.

Harry pulled open Draco’s thighs and crawled between them, his cock hard and flushed red, dribbling copious amount of pre-come from the slit. Draco couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight when Harry wrapped one large, square hand around it and pulled back the foreskin, wanking himself slowly, leisurely, as though he knew perfectly well the effect it was having on Draco.

“Look at you,” Harry said, reverent in his perusal of Draco’s body spread out before him. It was something most people would never see, Draco thought — Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, fisting his weeping cock with a dark, lascivious look in his famous eyes. “God, you’re _perfect_ , Draco.” 

Draco felt completely dazed as Harry slipped his cock between the lips of his cunt and started grinding slowly against him, slicking himself up with the juices leaking from Draco’s untouched hole. His arse, meanwhile, was still throbbing from the attention it had gotten, and he could hardly breathe for anticipation of being stretched open more fully.

And then suddenly his legs were being lifted over Harry’s shoulders and the tip of Harry’s prick was nudging at his arsehole; Draco’s head fell back against the pillows, wet mouth parted, letting out helpless, panting breaths as he stared up at Harry. 

“Tell me how badly you want it.” Harry’s voice was rough and his eyes were blazing where he was leaned heavily over Draco’s body, one hand holding his cock in place, the other gripped tightly around one of Draco’s calves.

“Harry,” Draco whined, arching his back off the bed in a fruitless attempt to make something happen. “Please … _please_ fuck me already …”

“You want it in your arse?” he taunted, hot breath ghosting across Draco’s neck now. He shivered violently.

“ _Yes_ … please, _please_ …”

“More than your cunt?”

Draco let out a harsh sob. “ _Yes_ ,” he whimpered. “More than _anything_ …” 

His eyes squeezed shut at the first press against his clenching rim, the head popping through past the unresisting muscle after a moment of prodding, Draco letting out a long, low moan. Harry pushed relentlessly inside until Draco could feel his bollocks touching his arse, his hole stretched impossibly wide around Harry’s girth. His pussy was pulsing out fluid at an alarming rate with each shift, leaving the insides of his thighs sticky and wet.

It was abundantly clear that Harry was worked up about something, probably _had_ been for a while before coming to Draco’s room, because it took him very little time to start up a punishing rhythm; he pulled out slowly, letting Draco feel every vein and ridge, and then slammed back in, wrenching feeble, gurgling noise out of Draco’s throat.

His sweaty palms slipped on Harry’s arms, fingers passing across a small wound, the one he’d received in Potions class earlier after having shattered a couple glass vials … 

“You saw Theo,” Draco gasped suddenly, crying out when he felt Harry’s fingers slipping over his pussy, his thumb and forefinger finding and squeezing his swollen clit even as he sped up the pace of his hips.

The answering growl he got in response was more than enough confirmation. 

“That’s — that’s why those vials broke.” He reached up with both hands, cupping Harry’s face and forcing their eyes to meet, his insides being battered with each brutal thrust, tipping him closer and closer to an unfathomable climax. “You saw him —”

“ _Touching_ you, yeah,” Harry snarled, snapping his hips forward with an especially powerful thrust and momentarily rendering Draco incapable of speech. “He fucking _wishes_.”

Draco barely had time to process this incredible information — that Harry was _jealous_ — before two fingers were being stuffed inside his pussy, and Draco shivered apart from the inside out. His orgasm tore across him with brutal intensity, whiting out his vision and leaving him completely boneless as Harry continued to pump into his arse and finger his cunt. 

“Harry, wait,” he gasped, hands back at Harry’s arms, like he was trying to steady himself, but to no avail. “ _Wait,_ wait, I … oh shit, oh _fuck_ ,don’t stop, don't stop!” 

Incredibly — _impossibly_ — he seemed to be bowling right into another orgasm, the muscles in his belly quivering violently as he tried to draw in harsh, panting breaths.

“Come again for me,” Harry growled. “Come on, baby, one more time, _come_ for me.” 

And Draco _did_. The force of it wracked his body and he threw his arms around Harry’s neck, clinging to him helplessly as he shuddered and shook through it with pitiful wails of ecstasy, fluid squirting out of his pussy to coat Harry's abdomen and Draco's spread thighs. The fingers in his cunt were pulled out as he felt Harry starting to pulse inside his arse, buried as deeply in him as he could go. His cock slid messily through a combination of both their come, making filthy squelching sounds as he slowed and finally stopped, shaking where he hovered above Draco.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Potter,” Draco said weakly, shifting his hips and moaning when he felt Harry’s cock softening inside him, come dribbling out of his clenching hole. “What the _fuck_ was that?” 

Harry didn’t answer right away, though. He’d buried his face in Draco’s neck and was breathing heavily, finally pulling out after a minute of letting his pulse presumably settle.

“Harry,” Draco said again, intentionally using his first name this time. Harry leaned down and fused their mouths together, pressing his tongue inside and coaxing Draco’s out in return. It was messy and wet and carried the same undertone of frantic desperation as had been so obvious during the sex. 

“Tell me it’s only me,” Harry mumbled, nosing across Draco’s cheek and down to his ear. Draco put a hand to Harry’s chest, and beneath the skin he could feel his heart fluttering away madly. The words made his gut wrench. They sounded … _pleading_ , almost.

Draco thought of a question Harry had asked him months ago now, something about whether or not there existed an “us” between them.

At the time, in spite of his dawning awareness of his feelings, he had said no.

This was not the same question, and yet seemed to Draco to carry infinitely more weight. Harry lifted his head, waiting torturously for an answer, and Draco pushed his sweaty fringe off his forehead.

“What happens if I say it is?”

Harry’s eyes burned with something unnamable.

“Nothing happens,” he said eventually. “I just need to know.”

“Then yes.”

Harry kissed him again with heartbreaking slowness, and when he broke away finally he _Accio-_ ed his wand, spelled them both clean, and then pulled the covers up. Draco turned in towards him immediately and raised an eyebrow.

“Well?”

“Well _what_ , kitten?”

Draco swatted Harry’s chest. Harry laughed and grabbed his hand, threading their fingers together. 

“You didn’t answer my question before.”

“Which question is that?” said Harry mildly.

“I asked you what the fuck that was supposed to have been just now.”

“I fucked you within an inch of your fucking life, that’s what that was. Are you about to register a formal complaint, or what?” 

“Potter, you just went bloody ba _llistic_ on me because Theo had his hand on my back for a _second_ in Potions today. What the hell is that about?” 

Harry very deliberately met Draco’s eyes. There was something significant in that terribly expressive gaze, something which made Draco’s heart take a flying leap up into his throat.

“You know the answer to that,” he said evenly. “I mean, what d’you want me to say, Draco? You want me to _say_ it?” 

Draco’s stomach lurched. How absurd it was that the sentiment — the same one Draco had been unable to say just the other night — should be suspended there between them, more pronounced in omission than it ever could have been had Harry just fucking _said_ it.

Part of Draco wanted to hear it more than anything in the world.

Most of him, however, didn’t think he could bear it. 

“No,” he said stiffly.

“Then don’t ask me questions you don’t wanna hear the answer to.”

Sufficiently abashed, Draco changed course by nuzzling beneath Harry’s chin, eyes falling closed, and he was relieved to feel Harry drape an arm across his waist and pull him closer. The candles were put out and neither spoke again in the darkness.

He fell asleep in Harry’s arms, and it seemed not a moment later that he was being woken up again to Harry whispering in his ear.

“Draco,” he was saying, wet kisses being trailed along his jaw, down his neck. “Draco, I think there’s somebody knocking at your door.”

Draco fought for wakefulness, aware first of how blissfully warm he was, then of Harry’s continued presence in his bed (which was unfounded — he always left before Draco woke up).

“What time is it?” he rasped.

“’Bout six.”

“Ugh. Get under your Cloak. It's probably Pansy, I'll get rid of her,” he said, sitting up in bed and rubbing tiredly at his eyes. Harry kissed him on the cheek before rolling out of bed, slipping on his boxers, and then covering himself with his Cloak. “Keep your bloody pants on,” Draco snapped at the door when another knock sounded.

“Mr. Malfoy, it’s rather urgent.”

Draco froze at the unexpected voice, looking wide-eyed in the direction where Harry had been, but of course, he was now invisible.

“Slughorn?” he whispered, and hurried to get some pyjamas on. When he opened the door, Slughorn had an expression on his face Draco couldn’t read. 

“Ah, Mr. Malfoy,” said Slughorn in a falsely upbeat tone. “Hate to wake you so early, but of course, rather urgent, as I said …” 

“Sir, what _is_ it?”

“Mr. Malfoy … your mother is here at the school. She'd like to see you immediately."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! ❤️
> 
> Comments and Kudos are, as always, greatly loved and appreciated.
> 
> (Catch me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/)!)


	21. Chapter 21

Looking grim, Slughorn confirmed that Draco’s mother was indeed at the school because she had heard about the hex, although he claimed, with apologies, not to know how she had found out. He left only after Draco assured him he would get dressed and come to his office immediately, and even squeezed Draco’s shoulder in a gesture that was apparently supposed to be fatherly but ended up being nothing more than severely awkward.

When the door was closed again, Draco turned and saw Harry throwing off the Cloak, an expression of wide-eyed concern on his face that only managed to make Draco feel even worse. 

“Draco,” Harry said, his voice hardly above a whisper. He put a hand on Draco’s cheek and Draco saw his eyes flitting restlessly across his face, like he was trying to read his thoughts. “I’ll come with you. Do you want me to come with?”

“No.” Draco shook his head, and after a moment’s hesitation he leaned forward to press their lips together, allowing himself the comfort it afforded him. Harry seemed to understand this, because he opened his mouth and deepened the kiss, letting his hands fall to Draco’s waist and gripping tightly.

“I’ll stay here and wait for you, then,” he breathed. One calloused thumb stroked the skin beneath Draco’s pyjama top. “Whatever you need. Tell me what’ll help.”

“How about Obliviating my mother? That would help.”

Harry did not smile. “Draco, you don’t have to do this. You’re of age, you _don’t_ have to see her if you don’t want. I’ll talk to McGonagall, I’ll —” But he broke off when Draco shook his head. He looked frustrated, and had the circumstances not been so terrible, Draco might have found that frustration completely endearing. 

“I need to talk to her,” Draco said softly. He lifted a hand and dragged his thumb across Harry’s stubbled cheek, still trying to find some semblance of comfort in the physical intimacy Harry was giving him. “I’ve put this off too long.”

“I don’t understand how she found out …”

“Pansy,” Draco said, and knew it was true even as it left his lips. “She’s been avoiding me since term started. I’ll bet she let it slip to her mother over the holidays.”

“Stupid bint,” Harry muttered, and Draco let out a weak little laugh. “I’ve never met anyone with such a loud fucking mouth.”

“Yes, well … I should probably get dressed.”

He pulled reluctantly out of Harry’s embrace and went to his dresser, where he started pulling out clothes and a clean pair of robes. He could feel Harry’s gaze on him as they both dressed, and found, to his surprise, that changing in front of him was comfortingly domestic.

As he was doing up the last fastening on his robes, Harry’s arms slipped around him from behind, and not a moment later there were lips at his neck, raising goose bumps wherever they touched.

“Do you want me to stay and wait for you here?” he asked again.

“I … I don’t know how long it’ll take … you can’t miss a lesson just because —”

“Draco,” Harry cut him off. Draco pressed his lips together, ashamed of the tears building in his eyes. “Do you want me to wait for you here?”

Draco was silent for a moment, and then, with a small sigh, said, “No. I might be with her a while.” He turned his head, catching Harry’s eyes. It was absurd and strange and wonderful to realize how much comfort they now held for Draco. “Will you sleep here tonight again, though?”

“Course.” Harry’s arms tightened around him, some of his thick, wild hair brushing gently across Draco’s cheek. “You want me to walk you to Slughorn’s office under the Cloak?”

Draco nodded, and five minutes later he was leading an invisible Harry Potter out of the Slytherin common room. On the way up to the sixth floor Harry held his hand through the Cloak, and Draco was just terrified enough of the coming encounter that he didn’t care how strange it must have looked. 

“Good luck,” Harry whispered into his ear. He felt the material of the Cloak press against his cheek and knew it had been Harry kissing him there. “I’ll see you tonight, whatever happens. And if you need me earlier than that … please come and find me.”

“I will,” he promised, and with a last squeeze of his hand, he felt Harry invisibly slipping away.

 

* * *

 

His mother was sat with her bum at the very edge of a cushiony seat in front of Slughorn’s desk when he walked in, and there was a burly-looking Auror standing off to the side with a hard expression. His eyes narrowed upon Draco’s arrival and flitted down to his covered left arm, but Draco had eyes only for his mother. 

She was clutching a handkerchief in her lap, and when she looked at Draco, promptly lifted it to her eyes and let out a great, devastating sob that made his stomach roll horribly. Tears sprang to his eyes before he could figure out a way to stop them.

“I’ll leave you two for now,” Slughorn said awkwardly, looking from mother to son. “Dawlish is required to monitor your mother, Mr. Malfoy, so he’ll remain here with you. Please help yourselves to tea and biscuits,” he added, gesturing to a breakfast tray on his desk. 

“Thank you, sir,” Draco said stiffly. At the sound of his voice, his mother sobbed again.

As soon as Slughorn left the room, Draco opened his mouth to say only Merlin knew what, but before he could, he was being swept into his mother’s arms and he felt her hot tears on his cheek. It took less than a second for him to break down as well, clutching at her robes and burying his face in her sweet-smelling neck. It was relief like he had never known it before.

“My darling boy,” she wept, pulling back and looking at him with puffy red eyes and makeup staining her cheeks. Her slight hands cupped the sides of his face. “Oh, what have they _done_ to you, my love? How did this happen?”

“Mum,” he choked, trembling hands still twisted fiercely around her robes, hardly daring to believe this reaction. “You’re not angry?”

“Angry?” she repeated, swelling indignantly even as she stroked a gentle thumb across his cheekbone. “Darling, I’m _livid_ , but not at you. _Never_ at you. Oh, Draco … why didn’t you tell Mummy? How could you keep this from me?”

Draco let out a hoarse sob and was grateful when his mum pulled him into another hug, cradling his head against her shoulder, for they were now exactly the same height.

“I was scared of what you’d say,” he admitted softly. “I thought maybe they could cure it before you had to find out …”

“Draco, my darling, there is _nothing_ you can’t tell me.” She kissed his forehead and wiped a tear away from his cheek with the pad of her thumb. “Nothing in this world could ever make me stop loving you. You are my _child_ , whatever you look like. Now _please_ , tell Mummy how this happened.”

They sat down and he told her everything — about being hit with the hex, the week spent in St. Mungo’s, the bi-monthly physicals, and the Healers’ failure to come up with anything. He told her about the bullying and the catcalling and even about how awful it had been going through menstrual cycles, but didn’t mention Kenny Helstrom, and especially not Harry.

“And during my last physical they said they hadn’t really gotten anywhere, but they’re still working on it,” he finished, shrugging helplessly. “Mum … how did you find out? Was it Acacia Parkinson?”

His mother nodded. “Pansy said something to her while she was home for the holidays. Don’t be angry with her, love … she was looking out for you.” 

“She did it on _purpose_ , then?” 

“She realized what you still haven’t,” his mum said with raised eyebrows.

“Which is what?”

“Darling … the Ministry might have frozen our assets right now, but we _do_ still have a little bit of gold left, and I intend to use that to get you more attentive care from St. Mungo’s.”

Tears dripped sullenly down Draco’s cheeks, overwhelmed with relief and gratitude.

“What if you do that and they still can’t find a cure?” he croaked.

“Then you’ll be my beautiful son who looks more like me than his father these days, and I’ll love you just the same as I always have.”

Draco laughed wetly and got up to hug her again, unable to get enough of that special brand of comfort only a mother could offer.

This thought reminded him forcibly that Harry didn’t have that luxury. 

“Thank you, Mummy,” he said into her neck, and sagged against her when he felt her hand card through his hair. “I … I want to tell you something else, actually.”

He pulled back, stomach rolling anxiously. Over his shoulder, he saw that the Auror, Dawlish, was tucked in a corner across the room where he couldn’t overhear them, looking politely away. 

“Mum,” he started, a lump the size of an apple in his throat and his hands shaking violently, “I’m sort of … seeing somebody. I don’t know whether … that is to say, it’s rather complicated. You see, I never, um … I couldn’t find a good chance to — to tell you, but …”

“Sweetheart,” his mother interrupted tenderly, “I know that you’re gay.”

The words hit him like a Bludger to the stomach, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

“What?” he rasped. “You … how could you …?”

“I’m your _mother_ , darling.” She smiled softly and cupped his cheek again. “I know _everything_. Well … as long as you don’t hide yourself away from me, I do.”

He let out a wet chuckle of disbelief. “And you’re not upset?”

“I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it, angel. After the things we went through last year … I confess, the only thing I care about these days is your happiness. If another … another man gives you that, then, well … that’s what matters to me.”

More tears trailed wet and hot down his cheeks as he clung to his mother’s neck, shaking with emotion. “But Father …” he said after a moment, pulling back to tentatively meet her pale blue eyes. “He probably … he wouldn’t …”

“We’ve … never spoken about it,” she said, and it seemed to cause her pain to do so. “Your father loves you so much, Draco. I … I can’t believe he would love you any less because of this.” 

Privately, Draco _could_ believe it, but he chose not to say it out loud, merely nodding with a small, shaky grin. He wondered whether his mum was thinking, as he was, about the fact that, by the time Draco would ever have a chance to tell him, he might not recognize him anymore anyhow.

 _Especially_ not if he was still stuck in this body.

If so, she didn’t bring it up either.

“Well, Draco, you said you’re seeing somebody, right? Is he … I mean … considering what you look like at the moment, he can’t be …?”

“Gay?” Draco supplied. She nodded, looking confused. “He … as I said, it’s really rather complicated …” 

“Who is it?” 

Draco swallowed hard, his stomach in a knot. Harry’s name sat precariously at the tip of his tongue, careening maddeningly back and forth.

“Draco …?”

He hadn’t told _anybody_ yet — it was only Granger and Weasley who seemed to know, because _Harry_ was the one with friends he could trust, who cared about him so much they would swallow back their hatred just to give him a chance to be happy. 

“It’s Harry, Mum,” he said, forcing the words out just to get the decision _over with_ before the anxious energy consumed him whole. His hands started shaking again; a frown-line had creased his mother’s brow, but for a moment she said nothing, merely stared at him. “Harry … _Potter_ …”

She continued looking at him blankly, and for a couple terrible seconds it occurred to Draco that this must have been the last straw; the hex she’d been able to handle, even being gay, but dating _Harry Potter_? 

She fell rather dramatically back into her seat.

“I don’t … I don’t understand,” she said weakly. Draco bit his lip, wondering whether this had been a horrible, _terrible_ idea. “How could … I thought you … I thought _he_ …” 

“We always did,” Draco said, knowing perfectly well what she was trying to say. He sat back down as well, scooting his chair closer. “Until a few months ago, I hated him as much as I ever did. But it’s bloody _Potter_ , Mum, when the hex happened, he decided he wanted to _help_ me, and —” 

“ _Help_ you?” She looked flabbergasted. Draco didn’t blame her. “What in Merlin’s name could he have done?”

“Don’t expect rationality when it comes to Harry and his heroics, Mother,” he said, and immediately tamped down on the tiny, helpless grin that tried to worm its way onto his face.

“Oh, goodness …” his mother said quietly, with a combined look of disbelief and tentative fondness. “You’re positively lovesick, darling.”

He scowled. He hardly needed reminding of that fact. “Do you mind if I continue?”

“Please.”

“He wanted to help, and … and he found a way to.” Draco dropped his eyes and mumbled his next words: “He saved Father from the Kiss.”

There was a quiet gasp, and when he looked up, he saw dawning comprehension in his mother’s eyes.

“ _That_ was why he did it?” she said quietly. Draco nodded. “Darling, I … I don’t know what to say… I still don’t understand how …”

“I don’t either,” he assured her, shaking his head. “It didn’t happen fast, but it _feels_ like it did. Nobody else knows except his friends. We’re not even _really_ together, not technically. I’ve been very adamant it’s not a relationship, because … well, it’s _Potter_ , for god’s sake.” 

“You’re ashamed?”

“No!” he said fiercely. “No, I’m just … scared.”

“Of what?” she asked gently. Draco regarded her with watery eyes.

“Aren’t you disappointed, Mummy?”

“Draco, my love, didn’t I _just_ tell you that nothing in this world could make me stop loving you?”

“Yes, but … _Harry Potter_ …”

“That boy saved us both from Azkaban, darling.” She moved a piece of hair away from his face, her fingers chilly but comforting where they brushed his skin. “I’ll _never_ forget that.” 

He nodded and wiped at a tear. “I’m scared he only likes me in this body.” 

“He knows who you are,” his mother said, taking both of Draco’s hands and squeezing. “Oftentimes it’s the people we spent a long time hating whom we know best, in fact. You wouldn’t have gotten where you are if he didn’t like that person, Draco." 

Draco let out a little sob, grateful beyond comprehension for this entirely unexpected reaction. “Mum … why aren’t you upset?”

She let out a hefty sigh and dropped her hands back to her lap. “To be perfectly honest with you, Draco … the way things are right now, given the political climate and the ridicule that comes with our name, knowing that Potter has a reason to look out for you sets my mind at ease. He does tend to successfully protect the things he cares about.” 

Draco thought of Kenny Helstrom — of Harry hunkered in front of him, promising to get him expelled if he touched Draco again — and smiled to himself.

“Yeah. He does. Thank you, Mummy,” he added, hands fidgeting anxiously in his lap until his mother handed her kerchief over and he started fiddling with that instead. “I … I think I love him. I know how that sounds, I … it’s not without a grain of salt that I say it, but …” 

“Darling, let me tell you something very, very important.” She stood up from her chair and kneeled in front of his, something that brought him immediately back to his childhood. Whenever he’d been in trouble with his father, done something seemingly harmless which had earned him a spanking or a smack across the face, his mother had always come to find him much later, when his father was locked away in his study with his mind a million miles away. Draco had almost always been sitting at his desk and scribbling away in a diary, and his mother would kneel beside his chair, and take his hands, and implore him to remember how much Mummy and Daddy loved him, even when he got in trouble. 

He licked his lips and looked down at her ambivalently, letting her take his hands as she’d always done. He felt suddenly six years old again. 

“We, your father and I, raised you to be cautious and mistrustful of your emotions. They can so often lead us astray and cloud our judgment when we let them get the better of us. But, darling … there are some emotions that are just too big, too _powerful_ to try and force them into submission.” Her blue eyes were as bright as Draco had ever seen them, and he thought he could see some indecipherable pain in there, something that made Draco’s heart clench with sorrow. “If you love that boy, then _let_ yourself love him. After everything that’s happened, Draco, I … I fear we ultimately failed you as parents. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be when you graduated from Hogwarts.” Tears were sparkling in her eyes again, prompting the same from Draco. “I can’t change what’s happened, or how difficult things are going to be for us for a while, but I can at least give you this piece of advice and hope that you use it.

“ _Don’t_ push love away. You have had … _so_ many mixed messages in your life, my angel … you’ve been forced to live through things no boy your age should ever have had to live through, and now, on the other side of the worst of it, _please_ try to let yourself heal. I know you, Draco, and I know that you’re probably holding him at arm’s length as hard as you can. If you think he loves you back, then _let_ him love you. All right?”

Hot tears dripped steadily down his cheeks and clung to his chin; there were so many emotions roiling inside of him that he couldn’t pick them apart to analyze them individually, giving him the sensation that he was about three seconds away from puking. He swallowed this back determinedly and nodded, squeezing her hands hard. 

“I’ll try,” he croaked.

“That’s all anybody can ever expect from you, darling.”

She pulled him to his feet and wiped away his tears, and it relieved him to see a small but warm smile on her ruby-red lips.

“You still look so _very_ much like your father, Draco,” she breathed, pushing his hair out of his eyes again. “You’re so beautiful, my darling. I’m so proud of how strong you are. Now, listen,” her voice shifted tone, no less tender but without the quivering emotionality, “I’m going to go into Hogsmeade while you’re in class today and buy you a few new things, I’ve been granted permission for the day as long as that Auror over there comes with me. Pansy’s told her mother you’ve been sharing clothes with her all year, and while I appreciate her generosity, I think you ought to have your own wardrobe.”

“All right.” He gave her a wan smile, his body feeling suddenly rubbery and his muscles loose. There was a horrible, aching sadness in his gut that had everything to do with his father, but more than anything else at the moment he felt utterly exhausted with relief. His mother knew now — that was over. And more than that, she knew about _Harry_. And she wasn’t angry — the opposite, even. “About Father …” 

“He loves you, Draco. Whatever you look like, and whomever you love. I know it’s painful, not being able to hear it from him, but in six months —”

“He won’t recognize me even if I’m back in my real body. And that's _if_ they grant us visitation.”

He could tell she wanted to tell him otherwise, but the reality of it was too huge for petty contradictions. In the end, he supposed he appreciated not being lied to, at least.

“I’m sorry, darling. Just know in your heart that nothing could ever make him not love you.”

The problem was that his heart didn’t believe it, but he once again held his tongue and nodded.

“Thanks, Mum.”

“One last thing before I leave, Draco.” She took her cloak from the back of the chair and put it on, then drew on a pair of dragon-hide gloves. “I’ll be talking to St. Mungo’s today and I’ll send an owl when everything has been sorted. I expect you’ll have exams more often than before.”

“All right. And … Mum?”

“Yes, dear?” she said mildly, tying a scarf around her slim throat now. When he didn’t answer for a moment, she looked around at him. “Draco?” 

“Thank you for the advice,” he said finally. “I’ll let you know how things go, shall I?” 

His mother reached out and pinched his chin, her smile one of great fondness. “I’ll look forward to an owl. Goodbye, then, darling. The school house-elves will deliver your clothes, look for them tonight.” 

“I will. Bye, Mum. Love you.” 

“To the stars, my beautiful boy.” She kissed his cheek, drank in the sight of his face one more time, and then she was out the door, Dawlish the Auror following behind.

 

* * *

 

Draco walked into Defence halfway through class. All he had to do was catch Harry’s eye and he seemed to understand what Draco wanted, because at lunch later on, when Draco went to the ever-unoccupied girls’ toilet on the second floor, Harry walked in minutes later pulling off his Cloak and stuffing away that infernal, _wonderful_ Map. 

“How did it go?” he asked breathlessly, green eyes wide with concern. Draco had tried to plan out what he would say a hundred different times in a thousand different ways, but in the end, he wound up flinging all that preparation aside and throwing himself at Harry, arms winding tightly around his neck. Harry stumbled backwards but caught him with a huffed-out laugh, lifting Draco right off his feet for a moment. “I’ll take that to mean it went well, then, did it?”

Draco pulled him down into a kiss and felt Harry smile into it, his chest erupting with butterflies.

“She’s talking to St. Mungo’s today,” he said, pulling reluctantly away from Harry’s lips and looking up at him, grinning helplessly. “I’ll probably have to start doing tests and exams more frequently, but the hope is that they’ll find a cure faster.”

It was with a _tiny_ pit in his stomach that Draco watched Harry’s face when he said this, looking — although he was reluctant to admit it even inside his head — for a flicker of … something. Disappointment, maybe, or even revulsion at the idea of Draco getting his real body back.

He saw nothing of the sort, and while it quelled that small, burning fear for now, it didn’t extinguish it entirely.

“Draco, that’s _fantastic_!” Harry exclaimed. “I _knew_ your mum would come through for you.”

“Yeah,” he nodded, fingers twisting in the front of Harry’s robes even as his smiled waned. Harry picked up on it immediately:

“What?” he said abruptly, brows creasing. “What is it? What just happened?”

“I told her I’m gay, too.” He swallowed hard, and before Harry could cut him off, said, “She already knew. Intuition, I suppose.”

“Draco, that’s … holy shit, that’s _great_. Why do you look like that?”

“She told me my father would still love me, too. Even if I’m gay. Even if I look like _this_.” He shook his head, the tears returning in spite of his ever effort to hold them back. Unable to meet Harry’s eyes suddenly, he tried to drop his gaze, only for Harry’s fingers to appear under his chin and stop him from doing so.

“You don’t believe her?”

“No,” he said quietly, voice wet and miserable. The admission made his heart twist painfully. “And I’ll never be able to find out for sure … by the time they let us visit him, he wouldn’t even recognize me in my _real_ body.”

Harry was silent for a few moments. He looked troubled, and when he finally spoke, it was with great hesitance in his voice.

“Did your mum tell you he’s doing that badly there?”

“Not in so many words,” he said. “It’s her letters … she tries to sugarcoat the news she receives from Azkaban — she gets updates, you know, on how he’s doing — but I can tell she’s scared. And today, she didn’t even bother to deny it when I said he wouldn’t know who I was by the time we’ll get a chance to see him again. _Maybe_ see him,” he amended miserably. A tear rolled down his cheek and Draco let out a deep sigh. “I just … wish I could hear it from _him_. Before his mind’s gone, you know?”

And then Harry was kissing him again, the salty taste of tears heavy on his tongue when Harry sucked it into his mouth. Draco melted into the distraction gratefully.

They only pulled apart when a bell marking the end of the period rang throughout the castle, and when Harry kissed his cheek and told him he’d see him later tonight, Draco was almost positive he saw a flicker of something resolute in Harry’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

Harry knocked twice on the door to the Headmistress’s office before Minerva McGonagall’s sharp voice called, “Enter!”

“Hello, Professor,” said Harry, walking inside and shutting the door behind him. “Do you have a moment?”

“Potter!” McGonagall exclaimed. She seemed to have been poring over a roll of parchment which trailed at least ten feet onto the floor and away from the desk. “Have a seat. How can I help you?”

“Professor, I … have to ask for a favor again,” he said, taking the chair across from the desk and thinking — as he supposed he always would — of the days when it had been Dumbledore on the other side. At this request she looked up sharply, peering at him over the rim of her square spectacles. 

“Indeed,” she intoned, lifting an eyebrow and properly lowering the parchment, her full focus now on Harry. “Not another trip to the Ministry, I hope.”

“Actually, I was hoping I might be able to just fire-call Kingsley. It’s — er — not _quite_ as large a favor as last time.”

An indecipherable expression appeared on McGonagall’s face. Her lips pursed into something that could have been an attempt at repressing a smile, but he didn’t know for sure.

“Tell me, Potter — does this have to do with Lucius Malfoy again?”

“Yes,” he said without either hesitance or shame.

“And _what_ , pray, is your slightly-smaller request of the Minister regarding Lucius Malfoy _this_ time? 

“I’d like to ask him whether Draco can visit as soon as possible, before Lucius succumbs to the Dementors' presence.”

Apparently this had not been what McGonagall was expecting, because any trace of humourous scepticism left her face immediately. She looked suddenly stern, although Harry had an inkling that was a product of confusion. 

“What on earth are you on about, Potter?” she said sharply, eyes flashing. “ _Really_ , if this is some sort of practical joke —” 

“It’s not, Professor,” he assured her hurriedly. “I know it probably _seems_ like one, but listen … Draco and I, we’ve been talking in private a lot this year, ever since that hex happened to him. I understand how absurd that sounds, but ... I mean, ask Hermione, Professor, _really_ , I’m not taking the mickey or anything. Anyway, I talked to him earlier, after he’d spoken with his mum. I just …” He bit his lip, chewing away thoughtfully as he tried to find a way of making it sound urgent without revealing anything that didn’t need revealing at this moment. “I think it would mean a lot to Draco if he was able to get his dad’s approval in _this_ body before it gets to the point where Lucius might not recognize him anymore.” 

McGonagall surveyed him thoughtfully for a minute, and Harry couldn’t even make a _guess_ at what she was thinking. It was just starting to drive him mad when she finally spoke. 

“After all these years, you continue to surprise me, Potter. This is a great thing you’re doing.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Harry said, shifting a little awkwardly in his seat. He glanced up at the portrait of Dumbledore behind McGonagall’s desk, and although he appeared to be sleeping, Harry thought he could see a smile twitch at the corner of his painted mouth. “Er — would it be too late to do now, do you suppose?”

“Minister Shacklebolt is usually in his office quite late. The Floo in this office connects to his directly. You may try him now, Potter.”

“I really appreciate it, Professor,” he said, and went to the ornate fireplace set into the circular wall. He grabbed a handful of Floo Powder, set his knees down in a semi-comfortable position on the wooden floor, and stuck his head into the green flames with no real idea of how he was going to pull this off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm loving to death all these theories and speculations, you guys are wild! I always take everything you say in comments into account, and I hope as many people as possible will be happy with the direction the story's headed as we start drawing toward the end!
> 
> As always, comments and Kudos are loved and adored, and you can find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat! ❤️
> 
> (holy shit how did this reach 100k words???? *throws confetti and flowers*)


	22. Chapter 22

“More frequent exams” turned out to mean bi-weekly trips to the hospital wing, and “more thorough” wound up meaning two hours of tests each visit, so that by the time the last weekend of January rolled around, Draco felt thoroughly poked and prodded and experimented on. Furthermore, Gryffindor was playing Slytherin in the upcoming match next Saturday, which meant Harry had returned his team to daily practices. It might have meant not seeing one another during the week at all, except that Harry had taken it upon himself to start sleeping in Draco’s room almost every night.

“Aren’t you exhausted in the mornings?” Draco once asked him sleepily, body still tingling from a monstrously powerful orgasm. Harry had merely chuckled and pulled him closer.

“Yeah, a little,” he’d said. “But I don’t mind.”

And Draco, who found that his days were brighter when his nights were spent wrapped up in Harry’s embrace, didn’t possess the level of selflessness required to tell Harry he really should have been sleeping in his own bed and getting a full night’s rest. It was therefore unsurprising that Harry was still deeply asleep when Draco woke up Saturday morning, his breathing slow and steady and immeasurably comforting where he was pressed against Draco’s back. 

For a few minutes, Draco merely let his eyes fall shut again and basked in the warmth and the safety of the feeling, grabbing Harry’s hand where it was draped loosely across his hip and pulling it close to his chest. Maybe it was silly, but he didn’t much care about that. He didn’t even care about the lunatic grin on his face. 

Finally he flipped over onto his other side and raked his eyes over Harry’s sleeping face, the thick black lashes brushing his cheekbones, the dark stubble covering a majority of his jaw and beginning to creep down towards his neck as puberty continued to age and fill out the scrawny, underfed boy Draco had once met in Madam Malkin’s nearly eight years ago. 

He pressed a soft kiss to Harry’s mouth and watched with his heart humming as Harry’s eyes fluttered open almost immediately. 

“Mmm g’morning,” Harry mumbled, smiling sleepily and tightening his arm across Draco’s waist.

“You’re a light sleeper,” Draco noted, brushing some hair out of Harry’s face when his eyes slipped closed again. Harry grinned against the pillow, his fingers moving idly underneath Draco’s shirt against his back, feather-light on his skin.

“I always have been,” Harry said, wrenching one eye open again. Draco thought privately that he had never seen anything so charming in his whole life. “But I got used to sleeping _especially_ light last year when we were on the run hunting Horcruxes. Undesirable Number One and all that, you know.” 

“Of course,” Draco drawled, though there was no hint of real disdain in his voice. “Famous Potter, from the Chosen One to Undesirable Number One, it’s always _one_ end of the spectrum.”

Harry snorted and seemed to come more fully awake now, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and looking fondly up at Draco, who was supporting himself on an elbow. Without his glasses, they looked especially green, and the sight made Draco feel slightly breathless.

“D’you, uh, remember in sixth year, I ran into you before that Quidditch match you bowed out of? You were with Crabbe and Goyle, Polyjuiced into a couple of birds. Remember that?”

“Obviously. What about it?”

“You called me ‘the Chosen Captain’,” Harry said, laughter bubbling beneath the words. “And ‘the Boy Who Scored’. I was furious at the time because I was desperate to know what you were up to, but later on I kept laughing when I thought about it. That wasn’t the only time that happened, either. I _hated_ knowing you were funny.” 

“Yes, well. I do have a renowned wit.” 

Harry lifted himself up just enough to touch an absurdly sentimental kiss to Draco’s mouth.

“What time is it, do you know?”

“Why does it matter? It’s Saturday, do you have somewhere to be?” 

Harry’s answering smile let Draco know he had heard the trepidation in his voice despite every effort to keep it out. His cheeks coloured furiously.

“No,” Harry assured him softly. “I’ve got nowhere to be but with you. I just … have something to talk to you about, and I wanted to do it before noon.” Draco instantly tensed up, and Harry must have felt it, because he continued on quickly, “It’s nothing bad, I promise. It’s … well, I don’t know _how_ you’re going to react, to be honest.” He _Accio_ -ed his wand and cast a Temporal Charm, scoffing when he saw the time. “Draco, it’s barely _eight_ in the morning!” 

“I’m an early-riser!” Draco said defensively.

“On _weekends_?” 

“Always.”

Harry huffed out a laugh and let his head fall back to the pillow, looking fondly up at Draco, who could only think to roll his eyes in order to hide any other wayward emotions this might evoke. 

“Can’t I sleep another hour or so?” 

“After you’ve just told me you need to talk to me about something time-sensitive?” Draco lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t be an idiot, Potter.”

“And when are you going to start calling me Harry, by the way?”

“Um … I don’t know, _never_ , probably.” 

“Right. Well, except when you’re coming all over my cock, you mean. You _really_ like saying it then.”

“You’re a fucking twat!” Draco hissed; he dug a knee into Harry’s side, satisfied when it wiped the grin off his face and made him grab at his ribs.

“Ow, that fucking hurt, you prick!”

“Good. Now tell me what you need to talk to me about or I’ll do it again.”

Harry breathed out heavily through his nose and reached over to the bedside table to grab his glasses. “Can we have breakfast first?” 

“How is _that_ going to work?” Draco scoffed. “What, we’re going to _inconspicuously_ show up in the Great Hall at the same time and then disappear together again afterwards? Not happening.”

“ _Or_ I could have my house-elf bring us food.”

“Sorry … your _what_?” Draco snorted. “Puh- _lease_ , Potter, you don’t have a —”

“Kreacher!”

A loud pop made Draco scream — actually _scream_ — and scramble backwards on the bed, heart racing. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to house-elves, for he’d had them his whole life, but he certainly had _not_ expected Potter to summon one, and certainly not directly into his private quarters. 

“Holy _shit_!” he exclaimed hoarsely, eyes bulging in his head. An ancient-looking elf had appeared in the centre of the room, its skin so loose it seemed to be sagging right off its bones, but two clean, bright-white tufts of hair sprouted from its ears and its enormous eyes shone with the sort of happiness that somehow erased any physical unpleasantness. There was also, quite strangely, a rather large golden locket dangling from his scrawny neck.

“What can Kreacher be doing for Master Harry!” it said in a voice that was not unlike the deep croaking of a bullfrog. 

“Draco, this is my house-elf, Kreacher.”

“ _Kreacher_?” he rasped, eyes widening further. “What, you mean …?” 

“The Blacks’ old house-elf, yeah,” Harry nodded. “Sirius left him to me when he died, so I got him instead of your Aunt Bellatrix.”

“Jesus,” Draco whispered, eyeing the old elf warily. He’d met it when he was a baby, before his Great Aunt Walburga had died around the time Draco had been five years old, and it was singularly bizarre to see it again now, in the employ of Harry Potter. 

“An honour it is finally to speak to young Master Malfoy!” said Kreacher earnestly, creeping closer to the bed with a distinctly servile look in its round eyes. “Master is looking much healthier than last time Kreacher is seeing him!”

“Kreacher!” Harry hissed, and Draco whipped his head around to look at him. 

“ _Healthier_ , did he just say?”

“Yeah, I …” Harry’s tongue appeared in his cheek, guiltiness blooming most legibly on his face. 

“You _what_ , Potter?” 

“I-had-him-tailing-you-sixth-year,” he said quickly — so fast, in fact, that Draco didn’t process the meaning behind the words immediately. “I wanted to know what you were up to!” 

“ _Tailing_ me?!” he repeated loudly.

“Kreacher,” Harry said swiftly, turning to face the elf again, “bring us some food from the kitchens, will you? I’d really appreciate it.” 

“Right away, Master Harry!” 

Kreacher was gone with a snap of his fingers and Draco shoved Harry in the shoulder hard.

“You fucking weirdo, you had me _followed_? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Draco,” Harry deadpanned, “you were literally plotting a way to get Death Eaters into the school. _Yeah_ , I was having you tailed, all right? I was trying to figure out a way to _stop_ you from doing it.” 

Draco felt blood rush to the surface of his cheeks and he scowled deeply.

“You’re the fucking _worst_ , Potter.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, he waxed poetic about your perfect hair and bone structure instead of giving me any decent reports.” 

“It does, but I’m still angry at you,” Draco said belligerently. To his deep annoyance, Harry merely smiled and scooted closer, nosing just beneath Draco’s ear and brushing his lips along the skin there. 

“Don’t be upset, kitten,” he whispered, at which point Draco’s entire body erupted into goose bumps. “Hermione still thinks it’s because I was obsessed with you.”

Draco turned his head and met Harry’s eyes, groin filling with warmth at the dark look he found there.

“Obsession is a pretty powerful word, Potter,” he said quietly. 

“Not _nearly_ powerful enough in this case, though,” he answered smoothly. Draco felt his heart skip and wondered vaguely when the fuck Potter had turned into Prince bloody Charming. 

Before Draco was forced to think of anything to say in response to this, however, the house-elf reappeared with a _crack_ and a tray of food in its hands so huge it seemed it would squash the creature beneath it in mere moments. Potter leapt off the bed so fast Draco fell sideways; he took the overlarge tray from the pitifully tiny elf and set it on Draco’s desk.

“Thank you, Master Harry!” Kreacher croaked, bowing so low its nose touched the floor, along with the locket. 

“This is great, Kreacher, thank you. I’ll call you if I need anything else.” 

Another bow, and the elf disappeared again.

“Where does it live when you’re at school?” Draco asked, getting up off the bed as well.

“He’s a _he_ , Draco. Not an _it_.” Draco lifted his eyebrows, taken aback by this admonishment, but Harry went on too quickly for him to say anything. “And usually he lives at Grimmauld Place, but McGonagall’s letting him work here at Hogwarts while I’m finishing up so he doesn’t have to be alone in that place again. It drove him fucking mad last time.”

“While Sirius was in Azkaban, you mean?” he asked, coming towards the desk where Harry had just pulled it away from the wall, opening up space on the other side for another chair. 

“Well before that. Sirius hated that place and he hated Kreacher — he probably hadn’t been back to that house since he ran away when he was still at Hogwarts. You don’t have another chair, do you?”

Mulling this information over, Draco grabbed his wand from his bedside table and a cast a Gemino Charm on the chair, instantly doubling it. He preened under the shocked look that appeared on Harry’s face.

“Well shit,” he said, grinning broadly at Draco. “That’s a really advanced charm.”

“Potter,” Draco drawled, sitting primly down in his creation and pouring himself a steaming mug of tea, “just because defensive magic isn’t my forte doesn’t mean I’m not _well_ ahead of the curve in most other areas. I got _ten_ O.W.L.s, thank you very much, and five of them were O’s.”

“Are you serious?”

“Don’t sound so shocked, Potter.”

Harry had sat down as well and was now absolutely _loading_ his plate up with food. “I’m not _shocked_ , it’s just … that’s really bloody impressive, Draco. Only one less O.W.L. than Hermione.”

“Fucking _Christ_. How does someone get _eleven_ O.W.L.s?”

“By being completely brilliant and completely mental,” Harry said around a mouthful of food.

Draco pursed his lips around a grin. “My god, Potter … you eat like you’ve been _starved_ , do you know that?” 

Strangely, a startled look came over Harry’s face at those words and he stopped with another forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. After a moment he set the fork back down, swallowed the food in his mouth, and after seeming to contemplate something, he finally said, “I _have_ been starved.” 

Something that felt like a cold pebble of dread dropped into Draco’s stomach. He set down the piece of toast he’d only just buttered and looked with drawn eyebrows across the desk at Harry.

“What do you mean, you _have_ been starved?” he asked slowly.

“The Dursleys,” he said, appearing to resign himself to something, “my Muggle … family. They didn’t feed me much. Worst of it was the summer before second year. Uncle Vernon locked me in my room and installed a cat flap — Muggle thing, so cats can go in and out of a door without it being open. They’d push a can of soup through it about three times a day, and half of that I had to give to Hedwig because there were bars on my window so I couldn’t let her out to hunt.”

Draco felt absolutely sick to his stomach, suddenly less hungry than he’d ever been. He swallowed back a distinct feeling of vomit building in his throat — _that_ was why Harry had always shown up to school each year looking scrawny and underfed: because he _had_ been. Because his adoptive family had quite literally starved a twelve-year-old boy and kept him locked up like some sort of sub-human creature. 

“I s’pose I still haven’t entirely broken myself of the habit of eating like a fucking —”

“Potter,” Draco cut him off, voice low and strangled. Mental images were flashing through his head now, ones of himself waving boxes of sweets in Potter’s face, antagonizing him about his lack of a proper family and how he’d never received any parcels from home.

“Draco, it’s —” He stopped talking when Draco stood from his own copied chair and went around the desk to where Harry sat on the original. Without preamble he sat himself down on Harry’s lap, throat still clogged up with remorse and despair. “Draco …” he said again quietly, but Draco stopped him with a lingering kiss. 

“I’m sorry, Harry,” he whispered against his lips. Harry’s arms came up to circle around his waist. When he pulled back slightly, he saw those fervently green eyes up close and his chest ached with something too complicated for words. “I used to … I _antagonized_ you about it. Being scrawny and not getting things from home. I mean, Jesus, how do you … how do you grow up like that and still turn out a good person? How do you save the world when the world treated you like _that_?”

He heard Harry breathe out heavily, arms tightening around Draco’s middle. Part of him felt undeserving of the affection — another part of him thought he’d completely unravel without it.

And wasn’t that something? That he, Draco, was the one in need of comfort while he heard about the tragedy of Harry’s past? 

“I mean,” he went on, shaking his head and sniffling back the threat of tears, “how do you lose your parents when you’re a year old and get stuck with a family that _starves_ you and … and, god, every other disgusting, horrible, _terrifying_ thing that’s happened to you, how do you live through that and _still_ care enough to be everyone’s hero?”

“Draco, you’re building up a very distorted image of me right now,” Harry said softly, and there was even what seemed to be a note of sardonic humour underneath the words. One hand had begun rubbing soothing circles into Draco’s back. “I’m not the only one who bad stuff has ever happened to … I’m just the only one who’s had it all thrust into the spotlight for public scrutiny.”

“You’re deluding yourself if you really believe that,” said Draco wetly.

“Well … maybe being inside it I just have a different perspective on the whole thing,” Harry said with a small, consoling smile. “But I think maybe you’re also just feeling a bit guilty.” 

“A bit?” Draco echoed despondently.

“Then here’s something I really can forgive you for, eh?”

In spite of himself, this statement wrenched a noise out of Draco that was half-sob and half-laugh. He planted both hands on either side of Harry’s face and pulled him into another kiss; then, with his eyebrows drawn and his heart somewhere near his throat, he pushed back Harry’s fringe and drank in the sight of a face that had been famous since he’d re-entered the Wizarding world at eleven years old, but which Draco was only recently beginning to see clearly for the first time. 

Those three elusive words were suddenly at the tip of Draco’s tongue again, but he determinedly swallowed them back. He had the strangest feeling Harry could tell. 

“You know, Potter, you’re really bloody attractive these days,” he said instead, smiling when it earned an eye roll from the boy beneath him.

“You’re truly a master of deflection, Draco.” 

“I pride myself on it.” He squirmed a bit in Harry’s lap. “Think you could tell me what you need to talk to me about now?” 

The soft smile on Harry’s face faded a little bit at these words. “Why don’t you finish eating first?”

“Because I don’t want to. I want you to tell me now,” said Draco. 

Harry scoffed. “You can’t just go around _demanding_ things, you know.”

“I’m not eating until you spit it out, Potter.” 

Harry heaved a deep, frustrated-sounding breath. He looked up into Draco’s eyes, and although Draco could practically _feel_ the struggle happening inside Harry’s head, he didn’t have an inkling as to what it could be about. 

“All right,” he said finally, dropping his gaze and nodding to what seemed to be himself. “I mean, it’s not a _bad_ thing, it’s just …” He looked up again, thick brows knitted. “So, after you spoke to your mum last week, you told me your dad’s not doing well in Azkaban. And you’d mentioned, y’know, how you’re afraid by the time you get to visit him, he might not be … lucid anymore.” Draco nodded silently; an intuition was creeping up on him, but it seemed so absurd he pushed it firmly out of his mind, refocusing on Harry’s words. “And then if you’re still in this body by that time… So, anyway, I decided to try something. I didn’t wanna tell you until Kingsley got back to me and I knew for sure, and yesterday I got an owl from him.”

“Saying what?” Draco said, voice cracking on the last word. 

“Saying you’re allowed to visit your dad, Draco. Just this once, as a favour to me. Your mum can’t go … I’m sorry. He had to pull a lot of strings. But _you_ can, if you want to.”

Draco opened his mouth, realized he couldn’t find his voice, and closed it again. Silent tears had begun leaking down his cheeks, only he barely felt them. All of his focus was on Harry, the words replaying in his head over and over, some part of him convinced it couldn’t be real.

“When?” he managed to croak out feebly.

“This evening,” he said. “I know that’s short notice, and I would’ve told you last night, only I thought you wouldn’t sleep if I did. Honestly, I … I thought it was better if you didn’t have _too_ much time to think about it. You’re a bit prone to overanalyzing.” He slid a thumb beneath Draco’s eye, brushing away a tear. “So … what d’you say? I have to owl Kingsley back by noon to let him know if you’re going.”

In lieu of words, Draco merely nodded. He fiddled with the loose neck of Harry’s shirt and sniffled back more tears.

“All right. Just keep in mind, Draco, that while he’s still himself, he _has_ been there over five months now, so he’s going to look a lot different. I mean, it’s not going to be —”

“I know,” Draco said, cutting across Harry’s words. “I get it. I still wanna see him. It might be the last chance I get.” He paused, then said, “Why did you do this?” 

“You know why,” Harry said without missing a beat. More tears dripped onto Draco’s cheeks. The unspoken sentiment was louder than ever.

“Will you come with me?”

“If you want me to, yeah. Of course.”

“Even though it’s my dad?” Draco questioned miserably. “You’d see him again?”

“Draco,” Harry said softly, cupping one damp cheek with a large hand, “for you, I’d do a hell of a lot worse.” 

And, emotionally unequipped as Draco was to deal with something as overwhelmingly significant as that sentiment, he buried his face in Harry’s neck and began the seemingly impossible process of mental preparation.

 

* * *

 

It was five o’clock when they were let into one of Azkaban’s visitation rooms by a guard. The Minister himself had greeted them at the entrance — probably, Draco noted, because nobody else looked too happy about the arrangement. He and Harry were not only on a first-name basis, but seemed to know one another well. He had even shaken Draco’s hand and given a respectful little nod. Afterwards, Draco had obsessively tugged at the left sleeve of his cloak, and he was grateful Shacklebolt hadn’t stayed. 

The room was small and completely empty save for a metal table and four chairs. Draco and Harry had taken two on the side closest to the door. A couple more guards were standing just outside, where an enormous glass window would let them know if anything was getting out of hand. The first guard had gone to fetch Draco’s father.

“D’you think he already knows?” Draco asked, eyes fixed on his hands in his lap. “D’you think he’s heard?”

“About the hex, you mean?” Harry asked. Draco nodded sullenly. “I … have no idea. Do you want me to go out there and tell him first? Before he comes in here?”

“No,” Draco said immediately. “It doesn’t matter. Mother said … she said he would love me no matter what. So … it doesn’t matter,” he repeated, and looked up at Harry with what he knew must have been a pathetically hopeful expression. “Right?” 

Harry didn’t answer, and he didn’t need to. The look in his eyes was enough on its own. Draco swallowed arduously and looked away again; he couldn’t stand to see that doubt, that horrible scepticism. 

It was the Dementors who brought Draco’s father, looking frightfully pale and even more frightfully thin as he was led to the room. The guard took him to his chair on the other side of the table and then left again to stand outside with the others, a wolf Patronus separating them from the Dementors, who were waiting to return his father to his cell when they were done.

Twenty minutes, the guard had said. 

It was not the man Draco had always known staring back at him. There were deep, dark circles beneath his dull grey eyes and his hair was thin and dirty, hanging limply in front of his face. There was a sneer twisting his mouth, but it lacked all the lustre Draco remembered. 

“What is this, Potter?” his father said, eyes on Harry, darting over to Draco only a few times suspiciously. “I was told my son was visiting. Where is Draco?”

Draco’s stomach somersaulted. Some deep part of him had thought maybe, _maybe_ his father would recognize him while he was still lucid, even in this body. He took in a deep breath, and then looked his father in the eye and said, “It’s me, Father.” 

His father turned his cold gaze on Draco. For several moments, he was utterly silent, but Draco could see his sunken chest rising and falling more quickly, and then suddenly he was standing up from his chair with a horrible, slightly deranged look in his eyes.

“Stay in your seat, Malfoy!” the guard — who had just peeked his head in the room — snapped. “Get up again and it’s back to your cell!” 

Something that felt as large as a rock seemed to lodge itself in Draco’s throat and tears prickled at his eyes. He wondered vaguely whether seeing his father dead might not have been less painful than this. 

“Why do you look like this?” his father said coldly. Next to him, Draco could feel Harry tense up and was grateful when he didn’t do anything, apparently exercising some self-control. “What has happened to you, Draco?”

“It was a hex,” Draco explained, almost pleadingly, _itching_ to get up and touch his father, hug him, and knowing he couldn’t. “A boy at school did it back in September. The Healers haven’t been able to figure out how to reverse it. It’s … part of the reason they let me come see you, Father. Because by the time we can contest visitation rights …”

A cold, calculating smile twisted his father’s mouth. “Ah … I see. You’ve come for my approval before Azkaban has turned me into a husk. My, my, Draco … we _are_ selfish.”

“Your son came to see you before you won’t recognize him anymore,” Harry snapped. Before he could think about what he was doing, Draco extended a hand and grabbed Harry’s beneath the table, squeezing in warning. 

“And what are _you_ doing here, Potter?” His father’s voice had dipped to a sultry, antagonistic tone. “Scrambling for anything to get your face in the news now that the Dark Lord is gotten rid of?” 

“Father,” Draco said quickly, noting the dangerous look on Harry’s face, but before he could say anything else his father had spoken again:

“Do you realize, Draco,” his father said over him, “that looking like this, you are of no use at all to the Malfoy name? What good are you to me now?”

Harry stood up from his chair so suddenly that it fell backwards, but before he could speak, Draco rose as well and grabbed Harry’s hand again. He stayed silent, but there was a murderous look about him.

“What is this?” his father sneered, cold gaze moving from their hands back to Draco’s face. “Friends with _Potter_ now, are you, Draco? How disappointing you’ve managed to become in just a few months.”

“We’re not _friends_ , Father,” Draco said, voice shaking badly but no less resolute because of it. The words stung, but they weren’t surprising — not if he looked deep inside himself. “This hex wasn’t the only thing I came here to tell you about.” 

Something terrible and threatening materialized in his father’s eyes, turning Draco’s blood cold.

“I knew it,” his father said quietly, sneer more pronounced than ever. He sat rigid in his chair, unable to stand up and practically vibrating with the desire to. Draco wondered whether his father had ever before been in a situation such as this, where he was forced to remain in such submissive position. “Disgusting, I _always_ knew it, but I thought you might have had the decency to pretend otherwise, Draco. So … what? You’ve brought your new friend _Potter_ along with you to tell me —”

“That I’m gay, yes.” For the third or fourth time today, tears began dripping down Draco’s cheeks. His chest felt on the verge of simply collapsing in on his lungs, but he gathered courage from Harry’s presence beside him. “And as I said, he’s not my _friend_.” 

Suddenly he could feel not only his father’s gaze but Harry’s on him as well. His palm was slick where it was pressed against Harry’s.

“He’s my _boy_ friend,” said Draco, and his voice shook, but god, it was the _truth_. No sooner had the word left his mouth — the feeling of saying it easing a little bit of Azkaban’s cold from his bones — than his father was shooting up from his chair and coming around the table. Before Draco could even think about reacting, Harry had stepped in front of him, and the very air inside the room seemed to crackle with magic. They’d had to submit their wands when they’d entered, and yet it was abundantly clear right now that should Harry decide he wanted to do to magic, he would be more than capable of doing it.

“Stay out there!” Harry yelled to the guard, who had gotten a hand on the door several seconds after Harry had already managed to take control of the situation. Astoundingly, and with a look of doubt and confusion on his face, he hesitantly obeyed. “Don’t move, Lucius, or I’ll let them take you back to your cell.”

“Get away from my son!” his father screamed, a mad gleam in his eyes. He looked deranged and dangerous and Draco averted his gaze, unable to look any longer. “Look what you’ve done to him! If you touch him, I’ll kill you, Potter!” 

“That’s not how it works, Lucius,” Harry said loudly. His voice was steady and commanding and he looked suddenly much older than eighteen with that stubbled jaw and fierce aura of authority. “Not anymore. Do you wanna hear the _new_ deal? Either you settle the fuck down and treat your son with some fucking respect or it’ll be _me_ who kills _you_.”

“How _dare_ —!” 

“I suggest you sit back down,” Harry said sharply, effectively cutting him off. Draco watched from a few feet back like he was having a particularly unrealistic dream. “Couple more seconds and that guard out there isn’t going to give a fuck who I am, and you’ll be back in your cell before you can blink twice. This may be the last time you ever see your son again, and that’s the only reason I’m doing this. For _him_. I don’t give a shit if you die here alone, Malfoy. So think carefully about what you say next.”

Several beats of silence, and then Draco’s father looked past Harry at him, nose wrinkled with disdain and loathing. The effect was exacerbated, somehow, by the greying stubble on his chin and the loose skin of his cheeks.

“You stand by this, Draco?” he jeered. “You would cower behind Potter like his _woman_ , let him speak to your father this way?”

“I’m not a woman!” Draco yelled, tears leaking steadily down his face and dripping off his chin. He pushed forward, past Harry, and looked up into his father’s face. “ _He_ did this! _He_ made it so I could visit you before you’ve lost your mind in here! Even after everything our family has done to him, everything _you’ve_ done to him, he did this for me because he _cares_ about me!” Unable to contain himself any longer, Draco reached out and shoved at his father’s chest. His father stumbled backwards, wide-eyed, and immediately the guards threw the door open and came running inside. His father’s arms were bound behind his back, and as the guards took hold of him, so too did Harry take Draco’s elbow. “What do _you_ care about?!” Draco shrieked hysterically as his father was tugged towards the door. “You just care about an heir, you don’t care about _me_! You just want a fucking _heir_!”

“Draco,” came Harry’s soft voice from behind him, but Draco only had eyes for his father, who was now being handed over to the Dementors outside the room. His eyes were dark, and whatever fight seemed to have been left drained promptly away as soon as the Dementors converged on him.

“I hope you rot in there, you son of a bitch!” Draco cried shrilly, tugging weakly at the arm Harry was holding, still focused on the sight of his dad being led away. “You never fucking loved me!”

“Draco,” Harry’s voice sounded again, more insistent now, and this time — with his father finally out of sight, maybe for the final time — he didn’t resist when Harry pulled him close. In fact, he melted into his arms, burying his face in Harry’s shoulder and letting the rest of the tears come. “I’m so sorry, Draco,” Harry whispered against his hair, both arms wrapped tightly around him. “This was a terrible idea on my part —” 

“No,” said Draco firmly, lifting his head and meeting Harry’s eyes. “It isn’t your fault. I’m glad I know — I _needed_ to know. Now I won’t have to spend my life wondering whether he ever really loved me as more than an asset. I know he didn’t.”

Harry didn’t say anything in response to this; he bent his head to touch a kiss to Draco’s lips and then wiped a stray tear away from his cheek. 

“Can we leave?” Draco whispered.

“Yeah. Let’s get out of here.”

Leaving Azakaban was a much quicker process than entering, and within half an hour the two of them were stepping out of McGonagalls’ fireplace back into her office. She greeted them politely and asked no questions, for which Draco was extraordinarily grateful. Harry exchanged a few whispered words with her and then they were able to leave.

Harry pulled out his Invisibility Cloak before they stepped fully into the corridor and covered both of them with it, although it was only just past six and most of the school was down in the Great Hall for dinner. They didn’t need to speak to know tacitly where they were headed, and so it was in silence that they made their way to the Slytherin dungeons hand-in-hand. In that silence, the things Draco had said back in the visitation room hung thickly between them.

Draco stepped out from beneath the Cloak when they reached the entrance to the common room, and they had only just stepped inside when their path to his private quarters was impeded by the only person who seemed not to be at dinner. 

“Draco,” said Theo, standing up from the chair in which he’d been lounging with an unreadable gleam in his eyes. “I was wondering where you were.” 

“Theo,” Draco greeted him, attempting nonchalance and just barely attaining it. He was sure his eyes must be red from crying. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather talk later.” He gave him a small nod and kept walking, only for Theo to step in front of his path.

“Where’ve you been? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“As I _said_ , Theo,” Draco ground out, hyperaware of Harry’s invisible presence immediately beside him, “I’d rather talk later. _Not_ that it’s any of your business anyhow.” 

“Just tell me who you’ve been with,” Theo insisted, keeping pace and blocking Draco’s path once again. Draco ground his teeth. “I _know_ you’ve been off with somebody, Draco. Zabini thinks he’s such a goddamned brilliant liar, but I can see right the fuck through him. Come on, then. Who’ve you been slagging around with, Draco?”

“Why the hell do you care so fucking much?” Draco snapped, and was instantly annoyed with himself for losing his temper. His emotions were running too high to properly compartmentalize them. “I haven’t been off with anyone, and if I had, it wouldn’t be any of your fucking business.” 

“It’s Potter, then, isn’t it?” said Theo. In spite of himself, Draco felt his shock display itself clearly on his face. “Yeah, I bloody knew it. You’re fucking Potter, aren’t you?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Nott!” 

“Really, Draco?” Theo drawled, lifting an arrogant eyebrow. “Don’t bother denying it, that look on your face when I said his name was answer enough in itself. I just have one question, though: why _Potter_? I mean, _Merlin_ , don’t tell me you’ve fallen for his bleeding-heart hero act _too_? Or has he just been cashing in on a few knob jobs in exchange for saving your father from the Kiss? S’pose he was bound to get sick of that ugly ginger bint before long.”

Draco knew what was going to happen and still wasn’t able to do anything about it when Harry threw off the Cloak and pressed his wand right into Theo’s throat, backing him up several steps while his eyes bulged with shock and his mouth fell comically open.

“Say that to my fucking face, Nott!” Harry roared. “Go on, see what the fuck happens, say it again!”

“Harry, stop!” Draco exclaimed, tugging at his arm and successfully pulling him back a foot, although Harry’s murderous glare never moved from Theo’s face. 

“Where the fuck did you even come from!” Theo demanded loudly, clutching at his neck as though Harry had strangled him. “Get the hell out of our common room, Potter, you bloody maniac!”

“You stay the fuck away from Draco,” Harry growled, pointing his wand at Theo again. “And if I ever hear you talking about Ginny again, I’ll knock your goddamned teeth out, Nott.”

Theo looked ready to lunge, so Draco grabbed the Cloak from the floor and pulled Harry back out of the common room, tugging it over them before Theo could come out and follow. He could both feel and hear Harry’s angry, panting breaths as they ascended into the entrance hall, but before they could climb the marble staircase, two people came out of the Great Hall and one of them gasped.

“Harry!” It was Granger’s voice. Draco felt like screaming.

“Stay under here,” Harry whispered, and then he stepped out from beneath the Cloak. Granger and Weasley ran over.

“I saw your feet,” Granger hissed. “Where’s …?”

“Under the Cloak still,” Harry said.

“Did you guys just get back?” Weasley asked.

“Yeah. Look, something’s … happened —”

“Potter!”

Holding his breath, Draco turned towards the stairs that led down into the dungeons to see Theo climbing up them, dark eyes stuck on Harry. 

“Fuck,” Harry breathed. “I have to deal with Nott, I’ll explain later. Will the two of you …?

“We’ve got it, Harry,” Weasley said.

“Come find us when you’re done,” added Granger. She waved her hand around in the air until it hit into Draco, and then one small hand squeezed just below his shoulder. “Come with us, Malfoy,” she added in a whisper.

And because he simply didn’t know what else to do at the moment, Draco followed. As they climbed the marble staircase, Theo finally caught up to Harry, and a shouting match began in the entrance hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos are, as always, much loved and appreciated. ❤️
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/) to chat!


	23. Chapter 23

Granger and Weasley led Draco up a floor and into an empty classroom, where Granger magically locked the door. It was with great hesitation that Draco pulled the Cloak off.

“What happened with Nott?” Granger asked quietly as soon as he appeared. Weasley was eyeing him impassively, but that was, Draco had to admit, a step up from revulsion. Besides, his head was throbbing and his mind was trying to sort out too many different things at once to be properly annoyed by his present company.

He stood close to the wall, a subconscious move that was steeped in uncertainty and self-protection. He knew it was okay to answer the question, that they were unflinchingly loyal enough to Harry they would never dream of repeating anything, but it went against every last one of Draco’s instincts, and it was still hard to do. Beyond that, half his mind was back down in the entrance hall with Harry still; it was absolutely maddening not to be able to see what had transpired between him and Theo, and yet Draco knew being there was a dangerous idea. He would never have been able to stay hidden under the Cloak.

It occurred to him suddenly how much he trusted Harry on an instinctive level, leaving him down there to sort the situation out on his own.

“We just got back from Azkaban,” he said finally.

“Harry told us you were going,” said Weasley. “Why were you coming up from the dungeons? He said you were Floo-ing there from McGonagall’s office.”

“We did.” Draco forced himself not to fidget. His eyes darted to the door and back. “We were going to my room when we ran into Theo.” Blood rose to the surface of his cheeks; he tried to will it away and couldn’t. “Potter was under the Cloak,” he held it up limply in his hand, “Theo stopped me in the common room and asked whether Potter and I have been sleeping together.” He glared at the both of them, waiting for a comment, but none came. “Then he said something about your sister.” This he directed at Weasley, whose expression darkened. “And, well … you know Potter.”

“Did Harry hit him?” Granger asked apprehensively. Her voice was muffled behind one hand.

“He wouldn’t’ve hit him,” Weasley said, speaking to Granger but keeping his eyes locked on Draco. “He’s hot-headed, not stupid. In the middle of the Slytherin common room?”

“He had his wand buried in Theo’s Adam’s apple when I pulled him away.”

“Oh _god_ ,” Granger groaned. “It’s …” She paused, licked her lips, and went on, “Just after we got back to school, Parvati said something about … she told us that … she said she thought she’d noticed Nott sort of …”

“Blatantly coming onto me?” Draco supplied bitterly. Granger shrugged, cheeks red, and Weasley looked down, clearly feeling uncomfortable. “I suppose not all Gryffindors are useless, are they?” He regretted the words almost instantly and was grateful when neither of them retorted. Weasley looked like he _wanted_ to, but didn’t. “However it was brought to his attention, Potter was already aware of the developing … _situation_ with Theo. And Theo has for some time been harbouring suspicions about Potter and me. It was his luck the prat happened to be invisible behind me when he confronted me about it. I might have been able to salvage the situation if Potter hadn’t jumped out from under the Cloak to play hero.”

“He can’t help himself, Malfoy,” said Weasley grimly. “Injustice and slights against his friends make him completely irrational, he’s been like that since we were eleven. He’s not _trying_ to play the hero, he’s just … defending his territory.”

“What did Nott do?” Granger asked, steering the conversation back around.

“Didn’t have time to do _any_ thing,” Draco told her, eyes darting to the door again. “I pulled him out of the common room. I was trying to get as much distance between us and Theo as I could when you spotted us in the entrance hall.”

“Ron,” Granger said anxiously, “maybe we shouldn’t have left him down there alone. I didn’t realize …” Her eyes flickered over to him and Draco saw something panicked there. “He’s _really_ quite prone to losing his temper these days when it comes to …” The omission of his name made Draco roll his eyes, until the actual meaning behind the words struck him and his heart did a mad little pirouette in his chest.

“He’d kill us if we left Malfoy here alone,” said Weasley. “You know he would.”

“Excuse me,” Draco snapped. It was something his father had always done, spoken in front of him as if he was no more sentient that a piece of furniture, incapable of having a say in his own life, too weak, too naïve to be trusted with a decision. “I’m right fucking here. And seeing as I’m not Potter’s _pet_ you’ve been assigned to keep watch over, I don’t think it’s necessary to play bodyguard.”

“We’re not trying to bodyguard you,” Granger explained patiently, a pleading sort of look in her warm brown eyes, “it’s just that I don’t think Harry wants you to be down there in case anything gets out of hand —”

“So you’re _prison_ -guarding me,” Draco said irritably. “What the hell do I look like to you, his fragile bloody _girl_ friend?” The irony of the words struck him as soon as they were out of his mouth; Granger had gone pink in the cheeks and Weasley was pressing his lips together like he was trying to physically keep a comment trapped inside his mouth. “You know what? This is stupid. I’m going down there.”

He made for the door only to have it blocked by Weasley a moment later. Draco seethed — he had just got done seeing his father for what he knew now to have been the last time, his emotions were completely and utterly out of whack, his stomach _wouldn’t_ stop turning over on itself and making him feel sick, and now, to top it all off, he was being forcibly kept away from whatever row was happening between Theo and Potter downstairs _immediately_ outside the Great Hall, where the whole bloody school was eating dinner. He was suddenly angry at himself for having followed Granger and Weasley up here, for having let his temporarily-frazzled nerves get the better of him.

“Get out of my way, Weasley,” he said through his teeth. Weasley didn’t budge.

“Harry doesn’t want you down there —”

“And what are you, his brainless _assistant_ ?” he snapped. “Get the fuck out of my way! I’m not gonna sit here while those two have it out over me in front of the entire student body! Since it apparently hasn’t crossed either of your minds, I’m not _ready_ for everyone to know we’re dating!”

“You are?” Granger said abruptly. He looked at her and saw the beginning of a smile forming on her face in spite of the situation. “I just … I thought you kept telling him …?”

Sucking in a deep breath and letting it out slowly through his mouth, Draco closed his eyes and forced his shoulders to relax from where they’d bunched up nearly to his ears. Finally, when he was sure he had better control over himself, he said, “I’m not discussing this with you. I haven’t discussed it with _him_ yet, and I’d really love a chance to do that _before_ all of Hogwarts gets their bloodthirsty claws on the information.” He paused, felt his hands trembling, and tried, unsuccessfully, to force away the anxious buildup of energy that was causing it. “I can’t deal with this right now. I can’t _fucking_ deal with this right now, get the _fuck_ out of my way, Weasley _._ Theo already saw Potter stick a wand in his throat and tell him to stay away from me. I _heard_ Theo shouting when we left, so if the whole bloody school doesn’t already know everything, they’re going to _soon_.” He moved forward, ready to physically grapple Weasley out of the way, only to be stopped by Granger’s voice:

“I’ll go down,” she said, and laid a gentle hand on Draco’s shoulder. He turned to her, tense and at the end of his patience.

“ _What_ ? What good will _that_ do?”

“I know how to talk to Harry,” she said. Her eyes were glued to his; the sincerity in them was striking. “I promise you, Malfoy, if _you_ go down there, it’ll make it worse.” She paused, and then said, “I know Harry. Stay here. I’ll handle it.”

There was something so absolute, so calmly confident in her voice that Draco found himself with an inexplicable instinct to trust her.

He nearly said yes. It was a close thing, and that in itself was cause for some self-reflection. In the end, however, he simply couldn’t manage to talk himself into staying put.

“I’m going down there,” he said. Granger frowned, but she didn’t argue any further. He was reluctantly impressed by this display of discretion. “I’m warning you now, if either of you tries to stop me, I’ll do what I have to do.”

He looked from Granger to Weasley and back again, seeing apprehension but no immediate sign they were going to do anything rash.

“Are you going to wear the Cloak?” asked Granger, indicating the silken fabric in his hands. “You should. At least at first. Until we see what’s going on.”

The logic was difficult to disagree with; after holding Granger’s gaze another moment, Draco threw the Cloak over his head and left the room with the other two in tow. The closer he got to the entrance hall, the more rapidly his anxiety seemed to be spilling over into the forefront of his mind, so that by the time they had reached the marble staircase and heard yelling down below, Draco was nearly frantic.

“Then why’d you do it, Potter?!” Theo had just shouted; for just a moment, Draco felt quite as though someone had delivered liquid nitrogen into his veins. He couldn’t possibly know about their trip to Azkaban … could he? Had Harry _told_ him? “If you’re not fucking him, why the _hell_ else would you have gone out of your way to save his father?!”

And then he remembered in a terrible flash of clarity: Theo’s father was receiving the Kiss on the first of February.

Tomorrow, in other words.

He pulled off the Cloak but was too numb to move, and he didn’t need Weasley reaching out to grab his arm to keep him in place. A few other students on the ground floor had come to a halt and were watching from the side. Quietly and unnoticed by anyone but Draco and Weasley, Granger had begun descending the staircase.

“I didn’t realize I had to be _fucking_ somebody to make helping them out plausible,” Harry said harshly. His voice was calm but loud, far more controlled than Theo. In fact, everything _about_ him looked more formidable than Theo; Harry was standing his ground, hand poised above the wand in his pocket but not touching it. In contrast, Theo had his pointed at Harry’s chest, and he looked both wild and unstable. It was something Draco had never seen on him before, and knew instinctively that the prospect of losing his father tomorrow had done this.

“Helping him out?” Theo scoffed. He sounded like he was straddling the line of insanity. “D’you think I’m an idiot, Potter? Tell me, then, what was that little act of yours back in the common room, eh? ‘Stay away from Draco’? Talk like that about _all_ your mates, I suppose.”

“Yeah, I do,” said Harry forcefully. “You may not be able to empathize with the concept of loyalty, Nott, but that doesn’t mean no one else can, either.”

“ _Loyalty_ ?” He laughed. It was loud and utterly devoid of humour. “What, and you expect me to believe you’ve become _that_ passionately loyal to _Draco_ without sex being involved? You two were at each other’s throats for six years, Potter. The whole fucking school knows it.” Theo gestured around the entrance hall, where a slow stream of students who’d finished dinner were now forming into a veritable crowd. “People who hate one another the way you and Draco did don’t suddenly become _mates_. Not that quickly, at least.

“Besides,” he continued in a silky, dangerous voice. “If you were only _friends_ , why’ve you been hiding it from everyone?”

Draco felt Weasley’s hand tighten on his arm. His throat seemed to have chosen this moment to shrink in on itself, leaving him unable to draw in anything more than rapid, unsatisfying sips of oxygen.

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” said Potter. “Look, Nott … there’s nothing I can do about your dad. I’m sorry for what you’re going through, but I —”

“You’re _sorry_?” Theo spat. “My mother is _dead_ , Potter, and my father is the last parent I have —”

The silence that followed the abrupt cutoff of Theo’s short tirade was resounding. He looked at Harry with his eyes gone wide as saucers, and for his part, Harry merely stood there with an impenetrable expression on his face.

“Did you want to finish that sentence, Nott?” Harry said calmly. A thick tension hung above the gathered students present. Even more had joined now, putting the crowd at somewhere between fifteen and twenty people. Theo didn’t move, didn’t speak. Draco could imagine the frantic way in which he must have been trying to maneuver himself back onto even footing. “Only I hope you weren’t going to suggest I don’t know what it’s like to lose both parents.”

“Harry.” It was Granger — she had pushed her way through the spectators and was now touching Harry’s shoulder. “Let’s just go, okay?”

“That’s right, Potter,” Theo said spitefully. “Walk away. It doesn’t matter. Everyone here knows you saved Lucius Malfoy from the Kiss because Draco’s been sucking your cock. Just my bad luck, isn’t it, that I didn’t grow a pair of tits, too? Then maybe you’d have saved _my_ father.”

“How dare you!” Granger yelled, startling not only Theo but Harry too, it seemed. She looked tiny as she stepped in front of him and pointed a shaking finger at a bemused Theo. “You foul, horrible, miserable _snake_! To even _insinuate_ Harry could ever do something like that!”

“Hermione,” Harry said urgently, stepping forward and taking her elbow, only to have her shake it off. Beside Draco, Weasley had just sprung to action and was racing down the steps. Draco blinked several times and felt his heart climb up into his throat, where it seemed to have lodged itself for good.

“No, it’s not right, Harry!” Granger shouted. She was pink in the cheeks, and Draco suddenly remembered a time, five years ago, when she had looked similarly before slapping him in the face.

No one noticed him as he started down the steps, too absorbed in the scene taking place down below.

“Harry’s a better man than you could ever _hope_ to be, you evil cockroach!” she said shrilly; when she took another step towards him, however, Theo lifted his wand again, and in a flash of movement Harry was suddenly in front of her and Weasley was immediately by his side, both their wands held aloft. “Just because you suddenly fancy Malfoy yourself and know you haven’t the slightest _chance_ with him doesn’t necessitate rumour-mongering!” She shouted this from behind them, standing on her toes.

“A chance with him?!” Theo barked. He tipped his head back and laughed, the sound raising goose bumps on Draco’s skin. “You think I give a rat’s arse about _Draco_? The Malfoy name is as low as it gets these days; I knew he was fucking Potter and I intended to exploit that to save my father, you daft twats! You Gryffindors can never see past your own self-righteous morals, can you?”

Draco’s hands shook and his pulse raced as he pushed his way past the gathered crowd, three people deep now. When he brushed past him, Harry did a double-take. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but before he could, Draco grabbed his hand tightly. A startled, apprehensive look crossed both Weasley’s and Granger’s faces, but they held their tongues. Theo looked positively gobsmacked ... as did everyone else in the entrance hall who was watching.

“We’re not fucking,” Draco said, cutting sharply through the accumulated silence with a voice that was a bit unsteady but still strong. “We’re dating. So I’m going to have to ask that you stop insulting my boyfriend, Nott, or I won’t try to talk him out of hexing you.”

Theo’s jaw clenched and he looked to be fighting against allowing anything too telling from forming on his face. Hissing whispers were beginning to break out across the hall.

“You think that’s real, then, do you, Draco?” he said after a moment; there was a mean gleam in his eyes that sent a shiver of revulsion through Draco’s body. “You think Potter here likes you for more than your perky new tits and a place to put his cock? There’s not a bloke in this school who hasn’t thought about fucking you since you got hexed —”

“Including yourself?” Harry cut him off loudly. Still holding Draco’s hand tightly within his much larger one, he stepped forward and lifted his wand so it was pointing directly at Theo’s chest. “What did you think was gonna happen, Nott?” he said contemptuously. “You thought you’d blackmail me into saving your father as well? Thought you might get a fuck out of it as well if you played your cards right with Draco? You’re  pathetic. Get out of my fucking sight before I decide to let McGonagall know what you’ve been up to and get you expelled. And for the record, I’d have expected a Slytherin to be better at blackmail. This was just embarrassing.”

“I’ll leak this to the _Prophet_ , Potter!” Theo yelled as Harry turned away from him, expression softening the instant his eyes fell on Draco. “They’d love to hear about their Famous Potter in a relationship with the disgraced Malfoy heir!”

“If that was supposed to be a threat,” came Weasley’s voice from behind Draco, drenched with disdain, “maybe you should have thought about cornering Harry in private, Nott. Blackmail doesn’t work when you shout about it in front of half the school, idiot.”

And Draco, who had spent seven years despising Harry, loathing the Weasleys, caught the startled expression on Theo’s face in response to this and _laughed_.

In front of the entire entrance hall, Harry cupped Draco’s cheeks and pulled him into a kiss that felt earth-shattering in its significance.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They went to Gryffindor Tower. Harry had been inside Slytherin innumerable times now, and yet Draco had never once set foot in the Lion’s Den. He was as morbidly interested as he was ambivalent.

The entrance was guarded by a portrait of an enormous woman in a horrible, gaudy dress of whom Draco had heard tell but never actually seen.

“Is she really called the Fat Lady?” he said quietly as they approached. Harry snorted.

“Yeah, she really is,” he said, and, louder, looking up at the portrait in question, “Draconis Corde.”

Hidden beneath the Cloak, Draco couldn’t say anything about this peculiar password. He followed Harry inside when the portrait swung open and immediately looked around; the Gryffindor common room was, in a word, cosy. It’s furniture was overstuffed and inviting, the atmosphere lighthearted, and the theme uncompromisingly red-and-gold. The tall windows afforded its residents an enviable view of the grounds, and created an illusion of airy openness that could never be achieved in the Slytherin dungeons.

A few students were scattered about chatting and doing homework, and not one of them gave Harry a second glance, surely not having heard yet about the spectacle in the entrance hall.

Harry’s dormitory was blissfully empty. Weasley was still with Granger and had assured them he would let their roommates know not to disturb them for a little while. Draco had never spoken to Finnigan or Thomas before, but he did know the last person he wanted intruding upon them was Neville bloody Longbottom, so he was grateful for the assurance of some time to themselves.

“This,” said Draco, tugging off the Cloak and looking around, “is exactly what I would have expected.”

Harry was not smiling when he came close and gently took the Cloak back. He threw it carelessly on the bed that must have been his and then took both of Draco’s hands in his own. One of them he lifted to his mouth and brushed his lips across the knuckles. Draco had never seen those green eyes look so bright before.

“The entire school is going to know now,” he said quietly. Draco did not need him to elaborate — there was only one thing he could have been referencing.

“Are you upset about that?”

Harry shook his head. His expression was difficult to read, brow creased like he was thinking hard while he studied Draco’s face. “I thought _you_ would be upset.”

“I’m the one who said it, aren’t I?”

Harry let go of one of his hands and instead lifted it to cup Draco’s cheek. He leaned in slowly, and when their lips met, it felt quite as though Draco’s heart had swelled to double its usual size.

“You told him I was your boyfriend,” Harry whispered, pulling back only enough so their eyes could meet. He could still feel Harry’s breath ghost across his lips. “Is that what you want?”

The moment was a pivotal one, and he knew Harry felt it too. _Was_ it what he wanted?

He had said it to his father, too. He had said it in front of such a large portion of the school that even within the next few hours, everyone would know.  

“Yes,” he said. “If it’s what you want as well.”

Something impossibly cogent burned in Harry’s eyes then, and as he smoothed a thumb along Draco’s lower lip, Draco felt premonition make his heart race only a second before the words came out of Harry’s mouth:

“I love you,” he said candidly. The honesty of it, the raw truthfulness of the words, robbed Draco of air. Harry let out a breathless little laugh, eyes alive with surging emotion. “I’m sorry. I know you’re terrified of hearing it, but I do. And it’s not _this_ ,” he said, slipping his hands down to Draco’s waist, where they circled its small circumference easily. “I swear to you, it isn’t this body I’m in love with, it’s _you_ , Draco. It’s all you, I’m fucking crazy about you.” He paused, eyes searching Draco’s face. Draco, his voice having temporarily fucked off someplace, stayed utterly silent and wide-eyed. “Please tell me you believe me. I _need_ you to believe me.”

Draco opened his mouth, and the words were _right there_. But he couldn’t push them out. It was like stepping up to the edge of a cliff he’d been eyeing from afar only to find that the drop looked even more terrifying than he’d imagined.

In lieu of the sounds he couldn’t make, Draco simply nodded. For Harry, this seemed to be enough — he broke out in a grin that chased away the chill leftover in his bones from their terrible trip to Azkaban. The way Harry looked at him now made everything else irrelevant. It made Theo’s vendetta meaningless, made the prospect of dealing with the rest of the school’s reaction to their relationship seem like a small price to pay as long as Harry never, _ever_ stopped looking at him this way.

Draco lifted onto his toes, cupped his hands around Harry’s scratchy cheeks, and brought their lips together soundly. The sentiment he had been unable to verbally reciprocate was expressed instead this way, and he knew Harry felt it.

“Fuck me,” Draco said against his mouth. His own words made his belly throb with want. He felt it as his cunt started leaking into his knickers — a physical response to the amount of tension accumulated within the last few hours. He needed release, and he needed Harry to give it to him. “Please.” The word sounded weak where he spoke it into the sharp line of Harry’s jaw. His hands were unsteady, his legs even worse, and it wasn’t until Harry backed him up to the same bed where he’d discarded the Cloak, laying Draco down on his back and climbing on top of him, that Draco realized exactly how weak with exhaustion he was.

Harry divested him of his clothing gently and methodically, and with the sort of reverence that went hand-in-hand with a first “I love you”. Maybe Draco hadn’t said it back, but he didn’t need to. His body said it with every arch up into Harry’s hands, every needy gasp from between his lips, every broken, desperate cry for _more, more, more,_ because it was never enough, could _never_ be enough.

And when Harry pushed into him, stretching his cunt open on that thick, relentless cock, Draco didn’t bother trying to fight the orgasm that swept over him and left him a shivering, boneless mess as Harry seated himself fully inside.

“Did you just come?” Harry asked breathlessly, a clear strain in his voice as he stilled, holding Draco’s small body in his arms as he shivered and shook his way through it with Harry throbbing inside of him. Draco nodded, nails digging into Harry’s arms, a high keening noise coming out of his throat. Harry bent his head and pressed an agonizingly gentle kiss beneath Draco’s ear. “You good?”

Draco swallowed. Shifted beneath Harry and then gasped when he slipped in even more deeply. It was what he’d needed since they had left Azkaban. What he needed before he could have a proper conversation about it, before he could start to wrap his mind fully around what he’d just done, what _they_ had just done, and the way things would be from now on.

“Please move,” he breathed. Harry steadied his hands on Draco’s hips, pressed his face into Draco’s neck, and started moving.

It was not like the last few times. It couldn’t have been, not with the word “boyfriend” between them, not with the word “love” having been said out loud. Each deep press inside was excruciating in its tenderness, each touch of Harry’s fingertips on Draco’s sweaty skin was gentle and deliberate.

It was not fucking, he realized suddenly, when Harry gasped into his ear and stilled, reining himself back in. This was lovemaking—gentle, agonizing, _purposeful_ in every movement, every twitch of hips, every press of fingers into pliant skin.

“I love you,” Harry told him again. He was trembling, and he looked more vulnerable than Draco had ever seen him, like he would have gladly bled himself dry if Draco had asked it of him. “God, I _love you_.”

Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s neck and anchored himself there as their movements lost finesse, as they surrendered willingly to the moment with panting breaths and shaking limbs and their hearts full to bursting. Draco knew his cheeks were wet, knew he was crying, and found to his surprise that he wasn’t embarrassed. He had been through a lot today, after all.

When it was over, Harry’s come dripping messily out of his sore cunt, Draco simply lay there, boneless, stretched out naked across Harry’s bed, enveloped in the smell of him that was so pervasive here, and let himself be consumed by it. Harry Vanished the mess before pulling the hangings mostly closed around them and gathering Draco up in his arms.

“I’ll always protect you, you know,” Harry said quietly, his fingers making patterns on Draco’s bare hip. “Whether it’s from your father or your housemates or the rest of the school now we’re out in the open.”

Once, Draco had told Harry he didn’t need protecting. Didn’t need to be saved.

And maybe he didn’t _need_ it. Maybe he could have made it on his own, muddled his way through all of this by himself and still come out on the other side.

It was beginning to occur to him, however, that he didn’t _want_ to do it on his own.

As was his wont, Draco brushed Harry’s fringe aside and delicately traced the scar on his forehead.

“Do you know, Potter,” he said softly, smiling at the eye-roll he received for the use of Harry’s last name, “I think you might be the best thing that could have happened to me in all of this.”

It wasn’t “I love you”. But it was close, and he would get there.

A noise from one of the windows broke them out of their intimate reverie; they both looked, and through a gap in the bed’s curtains Draco saw that an unfamiliar owl was tapping on the glass. Eyebrows dipped, Harry gave him a quiet “One second” before rolling out of bed and going to let it inside.

The owl left as soon as he’d taken it, and when he read the front, his eyebrows shot up.

“It’s for you,” Harry said, bringing the envelope over to the bed and handing it over. Sitting up slowly, apprehensively, Draco took it and read his name on the front, then turned it over and promptly felt his insides turn to liquid.

The wax seal was that of St. Mungo’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER TOOK SO LONG forgive me I had to get it right and I'm pretty pleased with the way this pivotal moment in the story turned out. I hope you guys are too!
> 
> As usual, comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, and you can find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat! ❤️


	24. Chapter 24

The Healer who had been in charge of Draco’s case since the very beginning was a woman named Zenira Penbroke; at first, when his diagnostics had only been twice a month, she had been the one to come to Hogwarts and do her tests on him in the Infirmary. Ever since his mother had interfered, however, and the visits had been upped to twice a _week_ , it had usually been other Healers that came by. If the letter he had received hadn’t been enough of a warning sign that something was going on, Penbroke’s presence now would have tipped him off.

It was Slughorn who had escorted him today, because his mother had not been granted another day of freedom. Harry had not been permitted to join him either, and while a part of him _had_ wanted Harry to be there, another part had been glad for an excuse to make him stay behind at Hogwarts. It wasn’t as if he thought Harry had been _lying_ when he had said this body didn’t have anything to do with his feelings — it was just that Draco felt quite certain a claim like that couldn’t be made truthfully ahead of time.

He meant it now. There had been nothing but sincerity in Harry’s eyes when he said it. The issue was whether or not he would still find his way into meaning it once it actually happened.

 _If_ it actually happened.

“Thank you for waiting, Draco.” The door to the little office in which Draco had been waiting, stripped down and forced into a hospital gown, opened up on Healer Penbroke clutching a thick wad of files and wearing a slight frown. Draco shifted anxiously where he sat on the examination table, barely able to meet her gaze. When she looked at him, her eyes were as warm and understanding as always, but something troubled had clouded them over. “Hop on down from there and have a seat with me.”

She gestured to a chair near her desk. Draco, throat dry, fingers trembling now, did as he was bid. It was bad news — he felt it in his bones. Nothing but bad news could put a look like _that_ on his Healer’s face. Tears of exhaustion, confusion, fear, _torment_ prickled at his eyes and Draco didn’t bother wiping them away.

“You’ve been incredibly brave, Draco,” Penbroke said softly. He dropped his gaze and squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the hot trickle of a tear roll down one cheek. “I’ve seen more than my fair share of witches and wizards come through here with any number of ailments and disfigurations, but what you’ve gone through these last five months has been a test of character not many people could have endured so gracefully. Before I say anything else, I want to make sure you know how far you’ve come, and how proud of you I am.”

He looked up with wet eyes and felt his chest clench.

“Thank you,” he croaked.

“I mean it. Now, earlier, when you came in, I didn’t tell you much because I didn’t want to get your hopes up.” Draco’s heart skipped. “We needed to do a few tests — what we discovered yesterday seemed relatively conclusive, but I would never give you false hope, not in a situation like this.”

“What did you find?” he pressed; his pulse had gained speed and suddenly his fingers felt numb. The hope he had been furiously repressing ever since he had walked in two hours ago and been told urgent tests had to be performed swelled like a balloon. “What is it?”

Penbroke studied his face carefully before she spoke: “It’s good news, Draco. But there’s been an unexpected complication we’ve discovered that … changes the situation.”

Draco stared, wide-eyed, waiting. _Good news_. That’s what she had said. “What … what is the good news?” he rasped.

Penbroke looked as if whatever answer she was about to give him caused her great pain. He could not imagine why this could be, for if they had discovered a cure, there was no complication in the world that could dampen that joy.

“We have discovered a potion that will reverse the effects of the hex,” she said calmly. As though a Stasis Charm had been cast upon him, Draco felt his body just sort of … freeze up. For one dizzying moment, the words replayed in his head but would not process. He gaped at her, aware only of the rushing sound in his ears and the furious knocking of his heart. “The complication,” she went on, voice quieter now, “is that the scans we did earlier have showed us that you’re about two weeks pregnant.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

An hour-long discussion with Healer Penbroke had not helped Draco wrap his brain around the concept. _Pregnant_. After a certain amount of time, the word stopped making any sense to him, lost all semblance of meaning or reality.

 _You know who the father is?_ Penbroke had asked him.

 _Yes_ , Draco had told her dazedly. _Harry Potter_.

Under different circumstances, the look on her face might have been amusing.

He was silent when Slughorn escorted him back to Hogwarts — nothing more than Draco’s Head of House, Slughorn had not been told a thing, but had gathered from Draco’s face that the news was unpleasant at best. He tried to be comforting, but Draco shrugged it off with a blank face and numb limbs.

 _We cannot give you the potion while you’re carrying a baby_ , Penbroke had said.

 _It’s still early enough we can get rid of it_ , she had said.

There was a spell they could perform. He would bleed heavily for about a week, and it would kill the fetus. Another week after that, they could administer the potion.

Draco had opted out of making the decision yet. He was petrified of talking to Harry about it, and yet knew that he had to. It wasn’t just that the baby inside of him was also Harry’s — it was the fear of returning to his old body. He hadn’t said it out loud, but he was quite aware now that he was utterly and conclusively in love with Harry Potter.

It disgusted some part of him, that the idea of Harry not loving him anymore in his real body should make him hesitate getting it back. It was _his_ body, after all — it should have gone without saying that _his_ was the only opinion that mattered.

Still, _should be_ was a far cry from _is_ , and the fact of the matter was that Harry’s reaction would affect him a great deal.

His hands shook as he stood outside the Great Hall as dinner was starting, letting the stares of the student body roll off of him like nothing more than water, feverishly searching for that black shock of hair.

Granger showed up first.

“Malfoy?” she said quizzically, stopping in her tracks and coming over to him. “Harry’s been … when did you get back?”

“Just twenty minutes ago,” Draco told her quietly. He had allowed Harry to tell them about the letter. Truthfully, he had dug around inside himself and found not one iota of loathing for either Granger _or_ Weasley anymore. Even the dislike was fading. He thought he might even have developed some sort of trust for this one. “Is Harry coming down?”

“Yeah, he and Ron had Divination. Is everything okay? We were so _sure_ that —”

“Later,” he said, cutting her off deliberately. He could not bear to hear the word _cure_. “I need to talk to him first.”

At that moment, he spotted Harry coming down the stairs with Weasley; Harry’s face first broke into a wide grin upon spotting Draco, and then promptly fell when he saw Draco’s ashen face and muted expression.

“Draco,” he said, coming immediately up to him and taking his hands. “What is it? What happened?”

“We need to talk,” Draco said softly.

“Yeah, of course. Let’s go back up to my room, it’ll be empty right now.”

There was an expression on Granger’s face that Draco took to mean she was going to follow up on this at the first opportunity, and for just a second it occurred to him why Harry had been friends with her all these years. Without his prejudices creating a solid barrier of dislike, Draco had come to realize she was really quite a comforting presence. Perhaps it was the reliability combined with the intelligence, or maybe even the genuine concern that appeared in her eyes when she was involved in a situation.

Draco stayed quiet as they made their way up to Gryffindor Tower; his focus kept going to his belly, where he found himself trying to _feel_ the baby in there, get a sense of its presence inside of him. Of course, this was impossible, and it was with some surprise that he lifted his head to find they had already climbed seven flights of stairs and were at the long corridor leading to Gryffindor.

“Here,” said Harry, throwing the Cloak over his head and leading him inside. The common room was utterly empty, rendering the precaution unnecessary, but he still left it on until they had closed the dormitory door behind them.

The reality of the situation settled like a boulder in his stomach.

“Jesus, Draco, what happened?” said Harry urgently, pulling him towards his bed and sitting him down on the edge. “You’re scaring the shit out of me.”

Draco licked over his lips and forced himself to look Harry in the eye. He was so _worried_ , so unabashedly concerned for Draco’s wellbeing. Something as large as a Snitch had lodged itself in his throat.

“There was … good news,” he said faintly.

“Good … good news?” Harry repeated, looking utterly flummoxed. “Like … a _cure_ good? Why … if it’s good news, why are you …?”

“There was a … complication.” _Complication_. Was that what they were calling it? This was suddenly so absurd Draco felt like laughing. “They did find a cure. It would take a week and a half to brew. But … there’s the —”

“Complication, yes, you said,” Harry broke in, and then appeared to try and rein himself back in with a deep breath. “Sorry, I … Draco, what’s the complication?”

A beat passed. And then another. Draco looked back and forth between Harry’s blazing green eyes, wondering if perhaps this would be the last time he looked at Draco this way, if perhaps just a moment from now, when he said it, everything would shatter into a million unsalvageable pieces.

“I’m pregnant,” he said. He waited, aware of his pulse fluttering in his neck, his heart beating savagely against his rib cage, and nothing happened. Harry just stared.

And stared.

And kept staring.

“Harry —” Draco started, on the verge of saying it again, but a second later Harry had stood up from the bed.

“I …” Harry’s voice sounded strangled, he had lost colour, and his eyes were wild behind his glasses. “You … mine?” he stuttered. Teeth chattering now, Draco nodded. He wanted to stand up, but didn’t think his legs would support him. They felt no more substantial that warm jelly. “You’re … you’re pregnant with ... with _my_ …?”

“With _your_ baby, yes,” Draco said. Panic was beginning to creep up on him — _always_ Harry was the strong one. Even when Draco had found him crying on the Astronomy Tower, Harry had not looked scared, or weak, or breakable. He had been stoic down in the Chamber of Secrets, and when he had been telling Draco about his abusive Muggle family. Yet now, when Draco most needed that famous resilience, that unwavering wall of resolve, all he saw standing in front of him was an ashen-faced Harry Potter with terror written in every line of his face.

“I can’t talk about this right now,” Harry said suddenly. There could have been nothing Draco had expected to hear less than this sentence; if he _had_ expected it, he might have reconsidered this entire conversation.

“You …?”

“I’m sorry.” Harry sounded frantic now. It was something Draco could not have imagined had he not been seeing it happen in front of him. “I’m so sorry, I’ll come back in a bit and we can …” He trailed off. “I just need to take a walk.”

“ _You_ need to —” Draco gasped in disbelief, pushing himself up from the bed. “Harry, you can’t just _leave_ , we have to —”

“I’ll be back,” Harry said, “I swear.” And in another moment he was out the door.

Draco dropped back onto the bed, mouth hanging open, cold dread creeping in and turning his blood to ice.

This had been a terrible, _horrible_ , irresponsible idea. It was lovesick madness to have believed Harry would react any differently. Teen pregnancies were taboo enough on their own when they happened to regular people with regular lives.

Harry and Draco were neither of those things.

He didn’t know how long he sat there — fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, staring at his hands in his lap, trying and failing to process his situation — before the door opened and Ron Weasley walked inside.

“Don’t get up,” Weasley said when Draco started to do just that. He paused, then sat heavily back down. He was too tired, too emotionally drained, to do anything else. Weasley took the bed next to Harry’s. “Me and Hermione ran into Harry. He wouldn’t say anything, just took off. Hermione’s gone to find him.” There was a long pause. Draco said nothing. Eventually, Weasley did: “Would you feel comfortable telling me what happened?”

Draco toyed with the idea for only a few seconds before deciding he didn’t care. He just didn’t fucking care. “I’m pregnant,” he said.

To his credit, Weasley controlled the expressions that passed across his face. They were still there, but subdued. First shock, then disbelief. Shock again. His mouth opened and closed. More shock, and finally, some strange sort of tentative acceptance. “The Healers told you this?”

“Yes,” said Draco monotonously. “They also discovered a cure, but can’t administer it if I’m pregnant.”

Weasley looked startled by this information. “Bloody hell,” he said quietly. “Why — er — why did Harry …?”

“Leave?” Draco supplied tonelessly. “Why did he fuck off and leave me here alone? I couldn’t fucking tell you that, Weasley. I really couldn’t.”

“He just _left_ , then? You told him you were pregnant and he just … he _left_ you here?”

“Told me he needed to take a walk,” Draco said. “Said he’d be back in a bit.”

Weasley chewed on his lip, looking deeply uncomfortable. “I’m … I’m sorry, Malfoy.” The words were mumbled a bit, but sounded genuine all the same. It added to the pervasive sense of unreality about the whole thing. “He’s probably just —”

“Scared out of his fucking wits?” Draco said sharply. Even in his own head his voice sounded just this side of hysterical. “Yeah. Surprise, so am I. At least he’s not the one with a fucking _kid_ growing inside of him. At least _he_ doesn’t have to choose between killing it or staying a bloody woman for nine more goddamn months. And _then_ what?” His voice broke on this last word; tears swelled in his eyes and dripped out of the corners. “Then I have his fucking kid and turn back into myself just for him to realize he doesn’t fucking _like_ me in my real body?”

“That would _never_ happen, Malfoy.” Up until now, Weasley had sounded wavery, on the edge of being uncertain and even more uncomfortable. This was not the case now — on this point, at least, he seemed resolutely sure of himself. “Running out on you just now, that was … it was shitty. But he’s probably already agonizing over it wherever he is.”

“Doesn’t seem to have brought him back,” Draco said bitterly.

“Believe me, Malfoy — Hermione will find him and sort him out, and when she does, he’s going to come back on his hands and knees begging you to forgive him. He might be the most hard-headed prat in the bloody world sometimes, but when he realizes he’s made a mistake, he doesn’t try and worm his way out of it.” An expression came over Weasley’s face now, and had Draco not known better, he might have even said it was compassion. “When I first heard about this thing between the two of you, I thought, y’know, that he just liked the way you looked. I thought that _had_ to be it. I mean, what was the alternative? That he liked _you_?”

It was harsh, yet Draco was filled suddenly with admiration for Weasley’s forthright honesty. No dancing around the point. No frills. Just the truth.

“An absurd notion, of course.”

“Completely barking,” Weasley said. “Except it turned out to be true.”

Draco scowled and looked away, another salty tear spilling over onto his cheek. It stung, to hear Harry’s promise from the night before relayed back to him once again by Harry’s best mate. The promise that it was _not_ this body, but _him_. And coming from Ron Weasley, the sentiment held a special kind of weight. For Weasley’s judgment was not clouded by lust or heightened emotion.

“You can’t know — _none_ of you can know — until I’m actually _back_ in my real body. Don’t you get that, Weasley?” Draco shook his head and stubbornly wiped a tear away. Dear god, that he was _crying_ in front of Ron Weasley. What had the world come to? Just what in the fuck had this post-war world come to? “Harry can have the most noble intentions in the world; it won’t stop him from realizing how disgusted he is the moment he sees me as a bloke again. It doesn’t matter if he _thinks_ his feelings won’t change. The fact is, it’s impossible to make that call until it happens.”

Something utterly extraordinary happened then — Weasley stood up from his own bed, crossed the few feet that separated it from Harry’s, and sat down next to Draco.

“I get why you won’t take my word for it,” he said quietly, “or Harry’s, for that matter. You’re right, I mean, you don’t know until you _know_. But for what it’s worth, Malfoy, I am a hundred times more concerned about _you_ breaking _his_ heart than the other way round. When Harry cares about something —”

“He doesn’t just _care_ , he obsesses,” said Draco, meeting Weasley’s eyes. “Granger told me nearly the same thing a few long months ago.”

“It’s true,” Weasley said. “Harry’s not like other people, Malfoy. He’s better. He’s braver, and he’s stronger, and he’s a good fucking person, unlike most of the world. You don’t know him well enough yet to understand that he’s too … he’s too _Harry_ to just fall for somebody’s looks. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you made the same mistake third year when you dressed up like a Dementor during that Quidditch match.”

“How in the hell is that relevant?”

“Because you thought Harry was afraid of the way the Dementors _looked_. You thought he was scared of _them_ ,” said Weasley. He raised an eyebrow as if he expected Draco to have had some sort of epiphany.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re insinuating,” he said.

Weasley gave an overwrought sigh. “It was the way the Dementors made him _feel_ , Malfoy. Not the way they looked. It’s the same with you — he likes the way you make him feel. Not the way you look.”

This was so unexpectedly profound that Draco could not, for several moments, locate his voice. He merely stared at Weasley, both dumbfounded and intrigued.

“You fancy yourself quite a Potter expert, don’t you, Weasley?” Draco said carefully after a moment.

“When you go through the things he and I have gone through together, you get to know someone pretty well.” He shrugged, looking sickeningly humble. “It was shitty that he ran out on you just now, but when he gets his head sorted out, he’s gonna be here for you. And that isn’t gonna change when you get your body back. Whether that’s soon or … y’know, nine months from now.”

Draco pitched a sigh, tears drying on his face.

“Will he wanna keep it, do you think?” he asked softly, eyes directed down at his lap. Peripherally, he saw Weasley look at him.

“Do you?”

Draco shook his head. “No,” he said firmly, although this was not the simple truth. The truth was that he would need nine months just to consider all the angles. “I couldn’t take care of a kid. I’m …” _Too selfish_ , he thought but didn’t say. “I don’t know how.”

“And if he _does_ wanna keep it?”

The idea was almost as exhilarating as it was terrifying.

“I don’t know,” Draco said. “We’d have to figure it out, I suppose.”

“He’ll support whatever you wanna do,” said Weasley, “even if he wants something different.”

Draco looked up at him, eyebrows drawing in. “You really believe he’d want to keep it? We’re not even nineteen.”

“I dunno, honestly.” Weasley shrugged and scratched absent-mindedly at a long scar on his arm. “What I do know is that Harry’s never had parents, or a real family. I mean, he’s part of _my_ family, he knows that, but you know what I mean.” Tight-lipped and aching, Draco nodded. “I just think the idea of having a kid is gonna be different for him than someone like you or me or Hermione.”

It was an astute observation. Weasley had made two of those now, and Draco was reluctantly coming upon the realization that Harry’s useless best mate wasn’t quite as useless as he’d always believed.

“What are those scars?” he asked, nodding towards Weasley’s arms. Now that his attention had been drawn to one of them, he noticed there were half a dozen others, as well. Thin and white and hardly noticeable unless you looked closely.

“What?” Weasley looked thrown by the sudden change in topic, but comprehension dawned almost immediately. “Oh. These, you mean?” He lifted his right arm and Draco nodded. “Er — they’re from the Department of Mysteries, when we were in there fifth year. There was this room with a bunch of brains in a tank. Wrapped these long tentacles around me. Memories, I think. I hardly remember it.”

The night his father had been arrested, then. Draco said nothing, and Weasley didn’t elaborate any further. It was strange to realize many of the horrors Harry had faced, Weasley had faced them right by his side.

“So, erm — you can wait in here, if you want. Until Harry comes back,” he said after a few moments of silence.

“ _If_ he comes back.”

“You have a lot to learn about Harry, Malfoy,” said Weasley, standing up and going to his trunk, where he pulled out a tin of what looked, upon opening, to be homemade fudge. When he sat back down, Weasley held it out to him. “He doesn’t back down from things, even when they scare the shit out of him. He doesn’t abandon people.”

Draco thought of that moment, nearly engulfed by the Fiendfyre and clutching Goyle to him on a burning mountain of junk, that he’d seen Harry on a broom and realized with hysterical relief that he was coming back for them.

He decided Weasley knew what he was talking about.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was just after seven when Harry walked in behind Granger. Draco stayed seated, but Weasley stood up from the bed.

“That was a shit thing you did leaving him here, Harry,” he said. Draco felt his sense of unreality sharpen. In no world Draco had ever inhabited did Ron Weasley defend _him_ to _Harry_.

“He knows it was, Ron,” Granger said gently. Harry wasn’t looking at either of them, however — his viridescent eyes were fixed resolutely on Draco. “Malfoy —”

“Do you mind if Harry and I talk alone?” he interrupted her. It was not facetious, nor was it polite. He said it in a monotone, stopping any conversation before it could get started.

“Why don’t we go somewhere else,” Harry said. He nodded towards the door. His expression was unreadable. “Outside, maybe. It’ll be quieter.”

“I don’t have my cloak.” Draco’s eyes flashed to the dormitory window, where snow was drifting lazily past.

“I’ll get mine for you,” Granger offered quickly. She spared a last glance at Harry before hurrying from the room. Lips pursed into a flat line, Draco finally stood up and moved towards the door, deliberately keeping space between himself and Harry. He saw, peripherally, Harry and Weasley glance at each other, clearly having picked up on this.

“Draco,” Harry started, but with a sharp look Draco cut him off.

“Here,” said Weasley, holding out the Invisibility Cloak to Draco. “Let’s go wait outside the common room for Hermione, shall we?”

He handed the Cloak back once they were in the corridor — the whole school knew now. There was no point hiding himself. It took Granger two minutes to come climbing out of the portrait hole with her cloak in hand. She was a smaller person herself, but it still hung loose when Draco put it on, and while things like this had ceased to surprise him anymore, he still pitched a weary sigh when the sleeves fell past his fingers.

He and Harry walked in silence down to the entrance hall and out through the great oaken front doors, the air between them heavy with everything unspoken. The snow was falling thick and slow, the flakes fat and puffy, and the grounds sparkled with the fresh coat. There was hardly any wind, and except for the sound of their feet crunching through the snow, the night was tranquil. They didn’t go far, stopping while they were still within ten feet of the warm yellow light cast by the Great Hall’s windows.

“I’m going to spare you the apology,” Harry said softly. His green eyes glowed in the pale light of the moon. Draco looked into them and felt an ache so deep it seemed to splinter his soul.

“Wise decision,” he said. “What _are_ you going to do, then?”

“I’m going to tell you why I left.” Harry’s voice was saturated with candor, the look on his face so open, so vulnerable, Draco nearly had to turn away. He had the air of a man baring his soul.

Draco nodded once, sharply, for him to continue.

“I was barely more than a year old when I had to go and live with the Dursleys,” he said. “I’ve never had a real family. I grew up on the outside of one. And I wanted it _so badly_. I always have. I still … I mean, it’s hard not to want that, y’know?”

Draco’s stomach plummeted. He heard the unspoken “I still do” as though Harry had said it at the top of his lungs.

“You’re lucky, Draco. Your mum loves you so much. I would give anything … _anything_ to be able to talk to mine. To know what she sounded like when she laughed, and what her favourite book was, and how she took her tea. What it would feel like when she hugged me.” Even up on the Astronomy Tower, the first time they’d spoken since their fight, Harry hadn’t sounded like this. For Draco, it was like watching him impale himself on a sword just to prove he could bleed. “Have you ever wanted something so badly it was like … like a _knife_ in your gut? Like this unbearable ache that never goes away, no matter what you do?”

Draco knew the way his voice was going to sound, and so did not bother saying anything more than, “Yes.” Thinking of the way he felt about Harry. Thinking of the longing in his own heart every time he was pierced with those earth-shatteringly green eyes across a room.

“The idea of having a kid — having something that’s so … _mine_ …” He shook his head, and Draco saw that Harry’s eyes were wet. His voice was steady enough, if not a bit rough around the edges, but there were tears trickling out of the corners. “I left you alone up there because I was terrified you’d see it on my face, Draco. And I know how ridiculous it is … how stupid ... I’d never expect you to have a _kid_ , let alone _mine_ , but I …”

Draco took a step forward, his anger utterly forgotten, and placed a cold hand on Harry’s cheek. Something very deep within him had shifted, and he felt quite as though he was facing one of those moments in life you usually only saw clearly in retrospect. It was the proverbial fork in the road, the final chance either to close his eyes and jump, or to back away for good.

“It isn’t ridiculous,” he said. Harry’s eyes fell shut and his hands went to Draco’s waist, like he was anchoring himself. Draco leaned in and touched their lips together, and when he pulled back, Harry chased his mouth, his eyes looking slightly dazed upon reopening. In a low voice that lacked any of his usual barriers, Draco said, “Is that something you would really want? A baby? With _me_?”

Harry’s arms finished circling his waist, pulling Draco flush against him and pressing their foreheads together.

“You have no idea, Draco,” he said brokenly. “God, you have no idea. But I couldn’t … I don’t know how to … I don’t _have_ parents. I wouldn’t know how to _be_ one, I can’t …”

“Harry,” Draco said, bringing his other hand up as well, cupping Harry’s face. It was strange, to be the one doing the comforting for once. Particularly in this situation, where _he_ was the one with a person growing inside of him. Seeing Harry break down this way had bolstered his own resolve, his own strength. “No one would be a better father than you.”

Harry looked at him with something like hope burgeoning in his eyes. “Do _you_ want this?” he asked hoarsely. “It’s _your_ body. It’s another _nine_ months. I would never ask you to —”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Draco said, cutting him off. “But, Harry, if I … if we _did_ this …”

“It would be one hell of a commitment,” said Harry, plucking the words directly out of Draco’s head. “I s’pose the question you have to ask yourself is whether there’s something else in life you’d want more than this. Something this would keep you from doing.”

Draco’s eyebrows drew together. “What about you?” he asked, and it was hardly more than a whisper of breath.

“I already have my answer,” Harry said without missing a beat. “There’s nothing I could ever want more than having a family. And to have it with you?” Harry’s eyes travelled Draco’s face, and it occurred to him suddenly how spectacular it was to be the person Harry Potter looked at this way. Like a man seeing the stars for the first time. “You’re everything to me, Draco. I’ll spend the rest of my life proving that to you, if you’ll let me.”

And suddenly the words were coming out, repressed for so long that his voice broke halfway through: “I love you,” he said, and lifted onto his toes to kiss Harry with a desperate, anguished sort of urgency that was returned tenfold. His fingers dug into the sides of Harry’s face, and he felt Harry’s hands slide upwards from his waist. He broke away from Draco’s mouth and looked down, following the movement of his own hands as he unclasped Granger’s cloak and slid his hands inside, beneath Draco’s blouse, over his bare stomach. The freezing wind didn’t have a chance against the searing warmth of those hands.

“You’re pregnant,” he breathed, like a prayer. A wet laugh followed, and his eyes lifted again to Draco’s. “You’re pregnant with _my_ baby.”

“You don’t have to tell _me_ that, Potter,” Draco said, attempting a joke and delighting in the grin it got from Harry.

“How — er — far along are you? Did they say?”

“Two weeks,” said Draco. “I didn’t even realize my period was late, it’s been so irregular anyway.”

“And they don’t … I mean, obviously they can’t know yet whether … what the gender is …”

“No, Potter.” It came out as a soft chuckle. “They can’t know that yet. I couldn’t tell you when, but I’m fairly certain it’s not for quite a while.”

“And after? Once it’s born, you can … the cure will still work? You can still go back to your old body?”

Draco eyed him for a moment, hands still resting on his belly. “Yes. Penbroke — my Healer — said it would be best to stay in this body for a few months so I can … that is, so I would be able to —”

“Breastfeed?” Harry supplied, a cheeky grin quirking the corner of his lips in spite of the gravity of the topic. Draco’s cheeks filled with blood, turning him what was sure to be an ugly shade of red. One of the hands on his stomach moved further under his blouse, until he was gently cupping Draco’s left breast. He took in a shaky breath that Harry muffled with his mouth.

“You’re getting off on this,” Draco breathed, not entirely sure if he should be pleased or exasperated. “You’re getting _off_ on this, you kinky fucking bastard.”

Harry laughed against his lips. His hands moved to Draco’s back and pulled him closer again.

“I’m just really bloody happy is all.” He kissed the corner of Draco’s mouth, weakening his knees and sending his heart into a frenzy. “And I know you’re gonna look so fucking good when you start showing.” His nails scraped delicately across Draco’s skin, something unfathomably deep sparkling in his eyes. “Tell me you love me again. Tell me you want this baby with me.”

Draco’s heart expanded right there in his chest. “I love you,” he said, “and I want this baby with you.”

They were the most honest words he had ever spoken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A hearty congrats to those of you who guessed correctly, and a hearty congrats to myself for somehow keeping my mouth shut until the big reveal. I hope as many people as possible are pleased with the direction I've decided to go, and I hope even more you'll enjoy the last few chapters, which are going to be a series of vignettes following our boys through the pregnancy.
> 
> As always, comments and Kudos make my day, and you can find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/) if you wanna chat!


	25. Chapter 25

**Monday, 8 February 1999 — Three Weeks Pregnant**

 

i.

He woke up to the feeling of a hand on his stomach and lips on his cheek.

“It’s almost eight,” said a deep, whispered voice in his ear. _Harry’s_ , he reminded himself, and grinned. Draco wondered whether he would ever _really_ get used to waking up next to him. He smelled wonderful, and when Draco pushed his face into Harry’s neck, he felt his belly instantly flood with warmth.

It was happening more and more often that the smallest things set him off — the way Harry didn’t bother trying to do anything about how his untameable hair curled up in the back; a shift of muscle in his forearm when he scratched his jaw in class, confused by something he was reading out of a textbook; how he didn’t even seem to think about it when he picked someone’s book up for them in the corridors, or held doors open for other people to pass through first. He was disgustingly, _effortlessly_ charming, and Draco’s raging hormones were keenly aware of it. These, of course, were minor in relation to the much _bigger_ things, the ones that left Draco with knickers so damp he had to run to his dorm between classes to change them. Things like the crackle of magic in the air when he demonstrated non-verbal magic in Defence; like the way he gleaned with sweat and exhilaration every time he came off the pitch after Quidditch practice, reeking of sex-appeal.

And what made it all so _extra_ unbearable was that, inexplicably, Harry seemed to have lost interest in fucking.

That wasn’t quite right, though — they _were_ still having sex, and often Draco spotted a look in Harry’s eyes like he was about three seconds away from throwing Draco against a wall and devouring him. The problem was that he wasn’t _doing_ it, and the sex had turned into something consistently slow and soft and, while heart-wrenchingly good, not quite what Draco needed to sate his ever-increasing need to be _fucked_.

This morning was no different: Harry started off trailing a wet succession of kisses down Draco’s neck, his hand a warm, heavy weight on his hip, but just as Draco turned to face him more fully, Harry planted a kiss on his mouth and then rolled out of bed. He was about ready to call him back, but the words were hardly even formed in his head when Harry disappeared into the en suite bathroom.

Draco flopped back onto the bed and threw an arm across his face, overtly aware of the throbbing between his legs.

He heard the shower start. He had half a mind to go in there and demand to be fucked, but decided against it in the end. Mostly it was that he didn’t want to _demand_ it — he wanted Harry to _take_ it, the same way he’d _taken it_ that day after Potions, when Harry had seen Theo touching him in the middle of class.

Rolling out of bed as well, Draco let his thoughts drift as he went about getting ready. He was getting up later than usual these days, and part of it was how warm and lovely it was to wake up with Harry’s heavy arm draped over him, but another part of it was that he didn’t have Pansy knocking on his door each morning at half past seven.

In fact, he hadn’t spoken to Pansy for nearly a week now. The last time had been the day after the debacle in the entrance hall with Theo, and Draco had proceeded to ream into her for going behind his back and telling her mum about the hex. Yes, it had turned out okay in the end, but for fuck’s sake, what if it _hadn’t_ ? And beyond that, Draco despised being forced into situations for which he was ill-prepared, hated going into things before he’d had sufficient time to analyse every possible outcome, and she _knew_ that. Needless to say, she hadn’t appreciated his lashing out, and it had evolved into a full-blown row right in the middle of the Slytherin common room. Blaise, meanwhile, remained civil when Draco spoke to him, but showed no inclination towards spending any time together outside of necessity.

This was how Draco had begun spending time with the Golden Trio. There were two upsides to this so far, one being that both Granger and Weasley were aware of the pregnancy, and therefore Draco didn’t have to mind what he said in front of them.

The other, incredibly, was studying with Granger. Harry had proved completely useless when it came to focusing on homework for more than forty-five minutes at a time, but when he and Weasley fucked off to throw a Quaffle around or play chess in the Gryffindor common room, Draco learned that Granger was capable of studying for hours at a time, sometimes late into the night, until Madam Pince was shooing them out of the library.

Clad only in a lacy white bra and his pyjama bottoms, crisp white blouse dangling from his fingers, Draco turned when he heard the bathroom door open and instantly regretted it. Harry had a towel wrapped around his waist, hanging low on his hips and showcasing the thick trail of dark hair that led down from his navel. There were little rivulets of water making their slow, torturous way down his chest, adjusting their course according to the hard lines of muscle they inevitably encountered. Just as bad were his stupid damp curls, tamed for the moment by the weight of the water and nearly touching his shoulders. Thankfully he wasn’t wearing his glasses, and by the time he swiped them from the bedside table, Draco had reigned himself in and returned his focus to getting dressed.

“D’you know what this would look cute with?” Harry said, suddenly behind him, one hand sliding across his bare lower back and raising goose bumps there.

“Oh, _please_ don't tell me you’re about to give me _fashion_ advice, Potter,” Draco drawled, turning a raised eyebrow on him. “You walk around in ripped denims and washed-out t-shirts.”

“I was only going to say it would look nice with a skirt.” This was breathed into Draco’s ear, sending a chill down his spine. He swallowed hard and deliberately let his breath out slowly, trying to hide its unsteady quality, and knew he failed. Harry’s fingers toyed with the waistband of his pyjamas.

Against his better judgment, and because he just couldn’t seem to hold the words in, Draco said, “Would that finally tempt you enough to fuck me, then, Potter? A skirt?”

The hand sliding beneath his bottoms paused, Harry’s fingers just a millimeter away from the dip of his arse crack.

After a long moment: “What?” Then the fingers were gone, and Draco’s cheeks were red with embarrassment, and god, he couldn’t even take it _back_. A moment of weakness, and of course Harry had latched onto it. “What do you mean, _finally_?”

Draco pulled away from Harry’s touch, not because he didn’t _want_ to be touched, but because being prickly was and always _had_ been his way of dealing with humiliation. Especially when he’d brought it on himself.

“I was taking the piss, Potter,” he said, still not looking at him, feeling his blush creep down his neck and wishing he could just _sink into the floor_. “You know, joking? Pulling your leg?”

He tried to return to finishing his outfit, only to have Harry take hold of his elbow and spin him around. Draco stubbornly kept his gaze on the floor, flushing further under Harry’s scrutiny. He felt utterly ridiculous, like a child who doesn’t know how to ask for something and thus resorts to pointless teasing and peevishness.

“You obviously weren’t joking,” Harry said in that you’re-not-as-good-at-hiding-things-as-you-think-you-are voice that Draco _loathed_. “But I don’t know what you mean, since I _have_ been fucking you. Like, every other night, in fact.”

“ _That_ ? That’s not _fucking_ , Potter.” Draco lifted his eyes finally and met Harry’s with defiance. This was the second step, after the petulant denial: even more petulant whining. “Maybe to a bleeding-heart _Gryffindor_ like yourself, but certainly not to the rest of the world.”

He tried to turn back away, but Harry grabbed his arm again and held him in place. There was a look in his eyes that turned Draco’s insides to liquid. It was dark with nascent understanding.

“You’re upset about the _way_ I’ve been fucking you?”

“I just said that isn’t _fucking_ , Potter. Are you deaf?”

Harry frowned deeply. “So, what, it’s not been … _rough_ enough for you?” He raised thick eyebrows and Draco turned his face away, mortified, even though Harry clearly wasn’t making fun of him. “Draco, I … you’re _pregnant_ , babe. I didn’t want to —”

“It’s fine, Harry,” he snapped, tugging his arm away and pushing some hair back from his face. God, why wouldn’t the _blush_ go away? His face was getting hotter every second, and to make matters worse, the smell of Harry was making him unbearably randy. “Just an observation, that’s all.”

“Oh, cut the shit, Draco,” Harry said, voice hard now as Draco stalked away from him. “If you’re upset about something, you have to _tell_ me. I can’t read your goddamn mind.”

“I’m not upset!” Draco said shrilly, spinning on the spot with his blouse still in his hands, cheeks burning a hectic red. “ _Merlin_. I was only _observing_ that you seem to want me a lot less than when I _wasn’t_ pregnant.”

“That is _the_ biggest load of hippogriff shit I’ve ever heard.” Harry strode over to him and tore the blouse out of his hands. Draco sneered, but it did nothing to deter Harry, who, if possible, looked more irritated than ever. “I spent half an hour eating your cunt last night, what the fuck d’you suppose that was?”

“Oh, I’m really _fucking_ sorry you had to endure such torture. And by the way? That’s not _fucking_ either, smartarse. That’s _eating my cunt_.” Draco snatched the blouse back, anger and humiliation mounting with every pulse of arousal between his legs. He moved to pull the shirt on over his head, only to have Harry grab his wrist, spin him unceremoniously around, and push him face-first up against the nearest wall, where Draco’s breath left him in a rush.

“Is this what you want, then?” Harry said into his ear. A shiver passed through Draco’s body and he let his eyes fall closed, temporarily left speechless by the position he was in, by the feeling of Harry’s solid, warm body pressed close. And his _wrists_ , bound at his lower back, just one of Harry’s hands sufficient to keep them there. The other was pressed to the wall beside Draco’s head. “You want me to treat you like a needy little slut, Draco? Will you quit _whingeing_ then?”

A high keening noise started in his throat and turned into a helpless whimper when Harry tightened his hold and shoved a knee between Draco’s legs.

“God, this _is_ what you wanted, huh?” Harry cooed. “Say it, kitten. Say it or you won’t get anything.”

“Yes,” Draco breathed, too mortified to make it any louder. Without any knickers on underneath his pyjama bottoms, the insides of his thighs were growing slick and wet with arousal.

He felt Harry nosing at the back of his neck, the barest brush of his lips, and then a murmured “All right” before everything was gone. Draco stayed frozen against the wall several moments, hands falling to his sides, before he found the presence of mind to turn around. Harry wasn’t even looking at him — he had dropped his towel and was pulling on a pair of boxers. From the side, Draco could just make out the thatch of dark hair around Harry’s prick, long and thick and clearly half-hard before it was covered up.

An array of questions formed on Draco’s lips but never made it farther than that. His heart was thundering, his hands trembling with pent-up tension, and there was Harry, looking as cool and unaffected as if he’d just woken up in his own room and was going about a regular routine of getting dressed. As if he hadn’t just pushed Draco up against a wall and called him a slut.

“Harry —” he started, but broke off when an article of clothing was tossed to him across the room. He held it up and his cheeks regained their colour. It was a pleated white skirt, the same one he’d been wearing when Harry had eaten him out in that empty classroom. A lifetime ago, it felt like.

“I said all right.” Harry raised an eyebrow at him, and even half-naked his presence and tone of voice was authoritative. “I’ll take care of it. I want you to wear that for me today, though.”

“You’ll take care of _what_?” Draco demanded, though in contrast to Harry he thought he sounded rather whiny and petulant. “Why do I have to wear this?”

“Because I asked you to, kitten.”

It was a few seconds before Draco realised he had no inclination whatsoever to argue.

 

ii.

When he was studying with Granger, the matter of where they sat in the library ceased to be a problem. When he was alone, however — like now, because the Golden Trio had a lesson — Draco had taken to sitting in more obscure corners of the library to avoid either confrontation or blatant staring. The staring in particular, which had gotten ten times worse since his and Harry’s relationship had gone public.

The desk he’d chosen today was tucked into a little nook off to the side. Plenty of students were grouped around the larger tables in the main section of the library, and more than a few were milling about nearby among the bookshelves, but there was nobody in his immediate vicinity to disrupt him.

His first tip-off that an invisible Harry had joined him was the ghostly movement of the chair next to his. Quill suspended above a sentence he’d been halfway through, Draco turned to look at it suspiciously. A moment later, the quill was plucked from his fingers and, seemingly of its own accord, spelled out “hi” on the corner of a page of Draco’s notes. Draco fought a smile furiously.

“Don’t you have _class_ , Potter?” he whispered, snatching the quill back out of what appeared to be thin air. “And why are you hiding under there? We’re _public_ , remember?”

There was no answer, but the seat he was invisibly occupying moved back further, and Draco felt the Cloak brush his calf just before his legs were prised apart and Harry appeared between them beneath the table. His green eyes sparkled mischievously up at Draco.

“Harry!” he hissed. His cheeks bloomed with heat and he tried to close his legs unsuccessfully. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”

“Relax, would you?” Harry said softly. “I’m making good on my promise.” And in spite of Draco’s mumbled protests, Harry began unfastening Draco’s robes so he could push them aside.

The skirt suddenly made a lot more sense.

“ _Harry_!” Draco squeaked again, hands going to the edge of the table and gripping hard when he felt that wild hair brushing the insides of his thighs ... and a second after that, the damp heat of breath ghosting across his knickers. “Harry, seriously, you need to get _out_ from —” His shaky voice cut off with a sharp hiss of breath, lips pressing together and head bowing, as the cotton of his knickers was pulled aside and a warm, wet tongue pressed between the lips of his cunt. “ _Harry_ …” he whined, halfway between pulling away and pushing himself closer. On one hand, this was _fucking insane_ , of course; all anyone had to do was walk in front of the desk and they’d see his legs spread wide right through Harry’s invisible back. Just as bad, should they walk _behind_ him, there was every chance in the world they’d see Harry under the desk between his thighs.

On the other hand, the idea that Harry was eating him out under a desk in the library was so blindingly fucking _hot_ Draco genuinely wasn’t sure he would be able to find the strength to stop this from happening.

Also, Harry was some sort of god with his tongue.

“Let’s go behind a shelf —” he started to say, only for his voice to abandon him when two thumbs pulled his pussy open and that wet muscle pushed slickly inside his quivering hole. One of Draco’s hands clenched in the piece of parchment on which he’d been writing his essay, ruining it, the other darting beneath the table to grab Harry’s hair on a reflex. “Please!” he whispered frantically, tugging, trying only half-heartedly to pull Harry away from his cunt, now dripping fluid. “Harry, s- _stop_!”

In the instant — the very _second_ — that he decided he was simply going to shove his chair backwards, Harry’s arms snaked beneath his legs and spread him wider, holding him securely in place. It took every ounce of strength Draco possessed not to throw his head back and emit a loud, helpless moan. Instead he bent his head forward again, dropped his eyes shut, and took in a deep, steadying breath even as Harry’s mouth moved to his clit and sucked it between his lips.

The fingers of the hand tangled in Harry’s thick black hair tightened. Eyes still squeezed shut, Draco’s sensual awareness shrank until the sounds of the library were nothing more than background noise and the only thing in the world that was real was the feeling of Harry’s mouth on his throbbing clit. And he was relentless — the pressure never stopped, not even to tease with the tip of his tongue; it was constant stimulation, the hot, wet suction of Harry’s mouth, and the orgasm that followed came fast and hard. Draco’s jaw fell open and his whole body shuddered as it washed over him, hips twitching against Harry’s mouth helplessly under the desk. Harry kept at it through the whole thing, as the exquisite pleasure climbed and finally peaked, and still he didn’t stop. One arm clamped down harder on Draco’s leg, holding him in place while the other migrated between his legs to slip two fingers deep into his pussy. Draco heard a gasping noise come out of his own mouth and had to slap a hand over it just in time for a second climax to bulldoze into him, little spurts of fluid squirting out of his cunt around Harry’s fingers.

He was so certain that would be it, so _positive_ he would now get a break, that his body preemptively started to go boneless; however, although those thick, merciless fingers were pulled out of him, his hole was instantly stuffed again with Harry’s tongue, and Draco let out of a wanton sound of helplessness that was muffled by his hand just in time. Harry’s fingers were brutal where they dug into his thighs and his tongue was stabbed in and out of Draco’s hole relentlessly, sucking out a copious amount of his fluids and pushing spit back in its stead. Shaky hand clenching and unclenching in his useless Potions essay, Draco was left with no other option than to let it happen, because clearly Harry had an agenda he wasn’t giving up on.

Only when a third orgasm, blinding it its intensity, had been wrenched out of him, did Harry give one last, firm lick from Draco’s arsehole to his clit and pull away. Draco felt himself shivering, felt the strain in his thighs from being spread so wide, and was therefore mostly oblivious to it when Harry took hold of his knickers and pulled them smoothly down his long legs and off his feet. He was complacent as Harry flattened his short, pleated skirt and refastened his robes, then covered himself back up fully with the Cloak.

“You’re so pretty when you’re coming all over my face in public,” Harry’s disembodied voice said beside his ear a moment later, and Draco at least found the strength to dig an elbow into the air around where he knew Harry to be. He was satisfied to feel it make contact, but the next second there was a quiet chuckle, and Draco scowled.

“We could have been _seen_ , Harry,” he said tightly, grabbing for his wand with trembling fingers and attempting to fix the essay he had ruined. And even worse than that, now his thighs were sticky-wet, his robes would feel tacky and gross the rest of the day, and he didn’t think the blush on his face would _ever_ go away. “That was stupid even for _you_.”

There was no response, though. He had just started to think Harry had seriously _left_ when he saw him coming out from behind a nearby bookshelf, having apparently ducked away to emerge from beneath the Cloak. He took the seat next to Draco’s as if nothing at all had just transpired, as if he’d only just come from a lesson with every intention in the world of studying.

“Why aren’t you in class?” Draco demanded before Harry could say anything. He was determinedly wearing his most disapproving expression, although being able to feel the slick mess under his thighs and between his legs made it feel silly at best. He was grateful all over again for the school robes, which would cover not only the pleated skirt that covered hardly _anything_ , but his completely exposed cunt now that Harry had taken his knickers.

“I was hungry,” Harry said, looking for all the world like this was an innocent answer. Draco, on the other hand, felt the blush all the way down his neck deepen. “And I had a promise to keep.”

“You are such an _idiot_ , Potter. Do you know how lucky we are nobody saw?”

“Relax, kitten.” Harry’s hand slid across his lower back, a soothing, warm, heavy presence that Draco nearly arched back into in spite of himself. “You seemed to be enjoying it well enough.” He leaned closer, and to everyone around them, it would merely look like Harry kissing his cheek, whispering something in his ear. Draco thought it severely unlikely any of them had even an inkling as to the kind of filth being crooned at him: “Don’t even think about going down to your room and putting knickers on before Defence, Draco. I want you dripping all over yourself through the lesson for me.”

“Ex _cuse_ me?” he said weakly, turning wide eyes on Harry, whom he felt he was seeing clearly for the first time. He thought back to the tantrum he’d thrown in his room earlier that morning and wondered whether he hadn’t accidentally tapped into something he wasn’t fully prepared to handle.

“You heard me.” Harry’s hand moved to Draco’s thigh and squeezed. It was as much adoring as it was commanding. “This was exactly what you wanted, Draco. Now be a good girl for me and do what I asked.”

Only one word was left ringing in Draco’s head as Harry, after planting a wet kiss on his cheek, stood up from the desk and left the library.

 _Be a good girl for me_.

It was mortifying to realise how much the humiliation of it was making him wet.

 

 

**Sunday, 14 February 1999 — One Month Pregnant**

 

i.

Valentine’s Day was, of course, a Hogsmeade weekend.

It also happened to be Harry’s first opportunity to take Draco on a real date. And while Draco had clearly enjoyed Harry’s library-stunt the previous Monday, Valentine’s Day was supposed to be more sentimental; what with the fact of Draco’s pregnancy and their looming parenthood, Harry thought it might be nice to have a real, _actual_ date.

That, and he was absolutely determined to have a serious conversation. Since the night two weeks ago when they had first decided to keep the baby, there hadn’t been much discussion; it wasn’t like either of them had _forgotten_ , but rather, they seemed to have reached a tacit understanding that neither was prepared to go much more in depth about it yet. Draco was hardly more than a month pregnant, after all.

And anyway, it was a scary fucking concept, particularly for Harry, who’d never had any parents of his own.

It was the thought of his parents that gave him the idea for where they would go. A bit reckless, maybe, but it felt right. It felt _essential_ , even.

He and Draco had walked into Hogsmeade hand-in-hand next to Ron and Hermione, which in itself was a rush, just … _holding hands_ , out in the open, like any regular couple on a Valentine’s Day date. However, they had broken off once they’d gotten into town, and Harry had led Draco to the turnstile through which he had once passed in order to visit Sirius in a cave. When they were out of sight of any stragglers, he had taken Draco’s hand, told him to close his eyes, and Disapparated.

When they rematerialized, Harry opened his eyes to find that Godric’s Hollow looked different than he remembered. Because of the daylight, probably — or perhaps the absence of looming fear and danger.

“Where are we?” Draco asked, looking around with his eyebrows drawn and soft snow falling in his hair. Flakes stuck to his golden lashes and left a beautiful, rosy stain on his pale cheeks. If Harry had ever experienced heartache just by _looking_ at somebody before now, he couldn’t remember it.

“Godric’s Hollow,” said Harry. Saying the name out loud made his heart leap. “It’s where I was born.”

Draco turned wide grey eyes on him. “ _This_ is Godric’s Hollow? But this is where your parents …”

“Died, yeah.” Harry nodded. At Draco’s horrified expression, Harry grinned and lifted their hands, pressing a kiss to the back of Draco’s mittened fingers. “I … maybe I should have warned you, I’m sorry. I just … with, you know, the baby and all that, I …”

He didn’t need to finish his sentence, for he saw understanding bloom in Draco’s eyes. This was helpful, because he was sure he would never have been able to find the right words.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yeah.” Harry nodded, swallowing back the pit trying to form in his throat. Trying even harder not to think about his and Hermione’s visit to Bathilda’s house. He had had no intention of this trip turning into something sad or mournful — he simply wanted to see his parents’ graves now that he, too, was going to be a parent, and even more than that, he wanted to share with the love of his life this place that meant so much to him and was so deeply and intricately connected to his past. “I was here with Hermione once, last year. I found my parents’ headstones and saw the house.”

Draco’s hand tightened around Harry’s. “Would you like to show me?” he said softly.

Heart lurching, Harry nodded again.

 

ii.

The cemetery was much prettier now than it had been the first time Harry had seen it with Hermione. He thought this, too, had something to do with the much-more-relaxed atmosphere, although he was also fairly certain it had something to do with Draco’s presence.

In the mid-afternoon sunlight, the snow sparkled pleasantly on the ground and atop the gravestones. Flowers in varying stages of life sat at the foot of a great many of them, but most had been covered up.

Harry remembered exactly where his parents were, and he led Draco to them by the hand with a little rush of anticipation.

Until they were actually standing in front of the grave, Harry had been nearly _positive_ he was ready to see it again; it was only seeing it, actually _seeing_ it, that made him realise there was no preparing oneself for this sort of thing.

It was different now than it had been last Christmas. For one thing, last Christmas, Harry’s only interaction with his mum and dad that he could remember had been in the graveyard when he was fourteen. That, of course, had hardly been an opportunity to take them in, to remember their voices, their faces. But ten months ago, he had walked into the Forbidden Forest prepared to sacrifice his life, and on that occasion he _had_ been able to take them in. They hadn’t been _real_ , but they’d been more than ghosts. He’d seen his mother’s long hair and kind eyes; he had seen his father, exactly the same height as Harry, with the exact same untidy hair; he had heard their voices, so clear and crisp they could be nothing but real. And he heard them again now, echoing out of his past just as if they were next to him once again.

His mouth felt suddenly dry as he looked down at the grave, and he felt closer to Lily and James Potter than he ever had before. Letting go of Draco’s hand, Harry dropped to his knees in the snow, aware of and unconcerned by the wetness in his eyes.

“Mum,” he whispered, reaching out a hand to stroke a thumb across the shape of her name in the cold marble. “I’m gonna be a dad. Can you believe it?” Beside him, he felt Draco kneeling as well, and a gloved hand was slipped back into his own. He smiled. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Draco?”

“You mean, do I think they’re looking down on you?” he asked quietly. “That they know?”

“Yeah.”

Draco shrugged. When Harry looked at him, he appeared contemplative. “I suppose I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. There’s evidence, of course, isn’t there? If there are ghosts, it’s possible there’s something more as well, right?” He paused meaningfully. “But then, _you’re_ the one who’s been hit with the Killing Curse twice, aren’t you? You tell me.”

Not just been hit with the Killing Curse, Harry thought, but _died_. Naturally, this idea had occurred to him many times since then— didn’t he alone have some sort of firsthand experience with death? He _had_ been dead, after all, hadn’t he? Or near it?

Without somebody to _talk_ to about it, however, he inevitably got swept up in a vicious circle of unpleasant memories he had no desire to relive on his own.

And yet, this wasn’t the time to go into it. One day, he thought, when they weren’t on their Valentine’s Day date.

Instead, he said, “Once, just after Sirius died, I asked Nearly-Headless Nick about death. He made it sound like it’s people who fear death and aren’t ready to go that usually stick around as ghosts. My mum and dad wouldn’t have wanted that for themselves. Sirius or Remus, either.” He let out a hoarse laugh, and with it finally came tears, sliding hot and wet down his face. “Too bad. Would’ve been nice to have at least one of them around to help me with this whole parenting thing.”

Suddenly, Draco brought Harry’s hand to his stomach. Harry squeezed his eyes shut and felt yet more tears leak out of the corners. He pressed his palm flat, and though Draco’s belly was not yet distended, he thought he could sense some presence inside.

“I don’t exactly have the best role models either, you know,” Draco said softly. His other hand appeared on Harry’s cheek, turning his face so their eyes met. “It’s going to be okay. _We’re_ going to be okay.”

Harry leaned forward and pressed their lips together in a kiss that said the things for which he couldn’t find words right now. He let himself be pulled up by the hand and stood still while Draco cast Warming Charms on both their cloaks and trousers to melt away the snow.

“Why are you so sure we’ll be okay?” he asked, slipping an arm around Draco’s waist and pulling him close, as much for his comfort as to ward off the cold. “Dunno if you remember, but you still hated me just a few months ago. And it was only two _weeks_ ago that you conceded to call me your boyfriend.”

“I _did_ concede, though, didn’t I? In the end?”

Harry searched his face, the delicate, feminine features that were so unbearably pretty but just _not quite right_. Not quite _Draco_. “You did,” he said after a moment. “In the end.”

“I love you,” Draco said definitively. Harry felt his stomach do a spontaneous little flip. “This whole thing has been weird as fuck, Potter, but I’ll tell you one thing: I really believe everything will be okay. I know I’m not the best at, you know … _talking_ about stuff. But we have another eight months to do the talking. We have a lot of time to start preparing ourselves.”

“And for you to stop calling me Potter?”

“Don’t count on _that_ one,” Draco said through a beautiful, teasing grin. “Just trust me, all right? I’m really quite intelligent, if you hadn’t noticed. With my brains and your penchant for surviving impossible odds, we’ll be fine. You know … in the end. And your parents?” He nodded towards the large headstone, where Lily’s and James’s names glittered prettily in the afternoon sunlight. “Wherever they are, whatever sort of afterlife they’re in, if there’s any at all — they’re proud of you, Harry.”

Harry let out a soft chuckle and planted a kiss on Draco’s cheek.

“I love you too,” he said. “And thank you for doing this with me. It’s not exactly _romantic_ , but —”

“You think sharing _this_ with me isn’t romantic?” Draco countered, cutting him off before he could finish the thought. “I’m not a bloody Hufflepuff, Potter. I don’t want chocolates and flowers and love letters for Valentine’s Day. I just want to know you love me. Bringing me here, where you were born, where your parents died, to see their graves … that’s a hell of a lot more romantic than a date at that god-awful Madam Puddifoot’s.”

With tear tracks drying on his cheeks, Harry tipped his head back and laughed. It was a full-belly laugh, chasing away any lingering shadows of doubt.

Maybe they _could_ do this, in fact.

“You can’t imagine how I hate that place,” Harry said when his laughter had subsided. “God, I love you.”

Draco lifted onto his toes and pressed an unbearably tender kiss to the line of Harry’s jaw.

“Ready to show me the house?”

“Definitely,” said Harry, glancing again at the grave. “I wish I knew how to Conjure some flowers or something to leave here.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Draco said. He pulled out his wand and waved it in a complicated pattern, whispering a spell under his breath as he did. At the base of the marble gravestone, Harry watched with a furrowed brow as several flowers sprang up from beneath the snow and opened up towards the warmth of the sun, bright white and achingly beautiful. “They’re lilies,” said Draco, a small smile adorning his face. “And they’ll never die. My mum taught me the spell a long time ago. She’s always loved flowers.”

Because he couldn’t find the right words, Harry merely touched his lips to Draco’s forehead in lieu of an inadequate thank-you.

“Let’s go,” he said, nodding in the direction of the cemetery’s kissing gates. “There’s a pub me and Hermione saw last time. We can go there after, have lunch before we go back.”

A sweet-smelling gust of wind ruffled their hair as they turned to leave, and Harry liked to believe it was his mum’s way of telling him she had heard every word.

 

iii.

It wasn’t that Harry had expected the date to go _badly_ —it was just that he hadn’t expected it to go so _well_. Seeing his parents’ house again was different in the daylight, without the fear of being seen and captured, and especially with Draco next to him, holding his hand. Draco had gone very quiet and pale, and when he’d seen the little sign pop up with messages from well-wishers, Harry had seen tears welling up in those usually cold grey eyes. It had been unexpectedly emotional, and in an unexpectedly wonderful way.

Lunch had been purely fun. Harry had nearly bought Draco a drink until Draco reminded him he couldn’t _drink_ while he was pregnant, at which point both of them had positively lit up at the reminder that Draco was carrying their baby.

For dinner, Harry had managed to convince Draco to eat at the Gryffindor table with him, Ron, and Hermione, and everyone had been in such good spirits that even Ron and Draco had been swept up into an amiable conversation about Quidditch.

In Draco’s room later that night, Harry made love to him slowly and with a fervent, spine-tingling passion that was utterly and purposefully different from the way Harry had fucked him following their illicit library rendezvous. And as much fun as it had been to watch Draco soak himself each time Harry whispered _good girl_ in his ear, he preferred nights like these by far.

Curled up together under the duvet, bare naked and with perspiration drying on Harry’s back, he thought again of their trip to Godric’s Hollow.

“You had a good time today, right?” he asked, nuzzling beneath Draco’s jaw and inhaling the scent of him deeply. “You weren’t just humouring me?”

Draco, who had an arm under Harry’s head, chuckled and ran gentle fingers through his hair.

“How many more times must you ask me this question, Potter? I promise you, I had a wonderful time.”

“And it wasn’t weird, you know, visiting my parents’ graves?”

Draco turned his head and Harry caught his eyes, shining with a tenderness he didn’t often show.

“Harry,” he said softly. He scooted down the bed until they were at eye-level and took Harry’s hand, then pressed a kissed to his palm. “It means the world to me that you’d want to show me your parents’ graves and the place where you were born. I only wish I could meet them.”

“Me too,” said Harry. His throat felt suddenly tight. “I know that they’d love you, though.”

“You’re sure about that, are you?” Draco teased. One of his slim legs tangled between Harry’s, and his perpetually cold feet slid along Harry’s calf. “In spite of everything?”

“ _Because_ of everything,” Harry said firmly. And he meant it. If there was one thing he was absolutely sure about, it was that Lily and James Potter would understand better than most falling in love with someone you once hated. “Because nothing has ever been as real as this is.”

After a moment in which Harry watched innumerable emotions pass across Draco’s face, he finally said, “And even though you’ve knocked me up at eighteen years old?”

“My parents were hardly more than a year older than us when they had me,” Harry said. “I’d like to believe they’d be happy for me. For us. I think they’d have made good grandparents.”

One of Draco’s hands landed on Harry’s cheek. He closed his eyes and let the sensation overwhelm him. He wondered vaguely, if he could go back in time, whether his younger self would believe that one day, Draco Malfoy’s touch would have this sort of viscerally calming effect on him.

“They definitely would have,” he said softly. “And I … I hope _my_ mother _will_ be.”

Harry grinned. “She will be. I suppose first we’re going to have to tell her, though, aren’t we?”

Draco’s voice was slightly hoarse when he said, “Yeah. I suppose so.”

It was a bit silly to think he would have been less afraid to once again face a Hungarian Horntail than admit to Narcissa Malfoy that he had knocked up her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted so badly to have this up for Valentine's Day but alas! I hope this porn-y little interlude was worth the (enormously long) wait! *Throws flowers*
> 
> I would be completely remiss if I didn't give a shout-out to [my angel babe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveglowsinthedark) for holding my hand and putting up with my actual screeching and crying and stomping and tantrum-throwing while I worked on this chapter, and without whom the best parts would not even exist. Thank you for............dealing with me. ❤️


	26. Chapter 26

**Saturday, 13 March 1999 — Two Months Pregnant**

 

i.

 

It was a rare occasion when Draco was found alone in the Slytherin common room anymore. For the most part, he, Harry, Weasley, and Granger spent their free time in the library studying for their rapidly-approaching N.E.W.T.s; when they weren’t doing that, Draco sometimes blatantly sat with them in the Gryffindor common room. Harry had taken to glaring at anyone who looked like they might make a comment, and even Weasley had snapped at someone whose name Draco didn’t know, telling them to get lost when they’d opened their mouths to say something.

Yet this Saturday morning _did_ find Draco alone in the Slytherin common room, because Harry had woken early for Quidditch practice. Had it been the Gryffindor common room, Draco knew he would have dealt with staring and sniggering and possibly even some very lewd comments; however, seeing as this was a bunch of Slytherins, what Draco got instead was isolation. Like he had contracted some sort of communicable disease, every last one of his housemates gave him a wide berth, looking at him only when they thought _he_ wasn’t looking, and otherwise pretending he simply did not exist. And this was fine — preferable, in fact. This was the way he had been raised, and this was what he knew how to deal with. Ostracization, not confrontation.

When Pansy sat down next to him, he pitched a sigh that could not be held in. 

“Draco,” she said stiffly. Draco waited a moment, sure that if he kept her waiting on a response she would simply give up and leave, but that was not Pansy. Pansy was, intellectually-speaking, dumber than a bag of bezoars, but she wasn’t _stupid_. She said nothing else, merely sat there looking at him, and finally, with a click of his tongue, Draco turned to her.

“Can I help you?” he said, lifting a single eyebrow pointedly. 

“We haven’t spoken in a while.”

“I’d noticed,” said Draco tightly. “Is there something you _want_?”

She shrugged. It was inelegant. It was honest.

Draco sighed.

“Look, Pansy, I —” 

“I’m sorry,” Pansy said, cutting him off. He stopped with his mouth still half-open and saw a blush staining her cheeks. “That is, I … I should have let you explain things to me instead of …” She trailed off, looking hopeless in a way he didn’t usually see her. Pansy might have been on the lower end of the intelligence quota, but she’d been raised never to appear at such a loss for words. The fact that she was now said what her words could not. 

It helped, but it didn’t erase Draco’s spite entirely. “Instead of abandoning me?” he said lightly. “So, what, you’re feeling guilty now? Or is it just that you’re bored and want my company again?”

“I do feel guilty, but I’m not doing this because I’m bored, Draco. You’re … you _were_ one of my best friends. My _best_ friend, actually. I was hoping we could try and talk this out.”

Draco’s tongue found the side of his cheek, mulling her words over, until finally he snapped his book shut and turned his full attention to her. “I’m sorry, Pansy,” he said, and saw the colour drain from her face. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

He stood up and left her there, leaving the unbearable atmosphere of the Slytherin common room for the Great Hall and some strong black tea.

 

ii.

 

The next time Pansy accosted him was that afternoon in the library. 

He was sitting with Granger.

Harry and Weasley were out on the pitch still, and he and Granger had their Potions textbooks open with an array of notes spread out over the table. Pansy sat down next to him, across from Granger, who for her part looked thoroughly speechless for once in her life. 

“I’d like to talk,” she said.

“I’m in the middle of something,” Draco drawled without looking up from his notes. “And unless I dreamt it, I thought I told you to bugger off just a few hours ago.”

“You didn’t say that, you didn’t say _anything_ — you just left.” 

“Maybe I should go,” Granger said. She started gathering up her own notes until Draco stopped her with a fierce look. 

“No,” he said sharply. “Stay.” He turned to Pansy finally. “ _You_ go. Granger and I are studying, a concept that while utterly foreign to you should still be easy enough to respect.”

She bit her lip, looked like she would say something else, but appeared to decide against it in the end. She left like a kicked puppy, and Draco furiously squashed his feelings of regret. 

“Maybe you should talk to her,” said Granger softly.

“No,” said Draco, and the matter was dropped.

 

iii.

 

That evening, Pansy knocked on his door at just after ten. Harry was sitting at the desk, hunched over an essay he’d been working on for the last half-hour. Draco was on his stomach on his bed, revising his notes he’d taken earlier in the day with Granger.

At the sound of the door, Harry looked over at him.

“Who d’you suppose that is?” he said quietly. The last time, of course, that someone had knocked while they were together, it had been Slughorn with bad news. Draco’s stomach did a Pavlovian jolt before settling. It couldn’t be more bad news — what else was there? It wasn’t as though anyone could have told his mother he was pregnant, for _that_ information was contained between himself and the Golden Trio. And for as many things as he could say against Weasley and Granger, there was no part of him which believed either one would ever do something as horrible as snitch to his mother.

“It’s Pansy,” Draco said. He stood up from his bed, pulled Harry’s jumper on over his bra, and went to the door. “She’s been harassing me all bloody day.” 

“Whoa, wait, are you letting her in?” Harry straightened up in his chair, looking suddenly panicked. “Let me put a fucking shirt on, Merlin’s tits, Draco.” 

But Draco, rolling his eyes and even smirking to himself, pulled the door open before Harry had even managed to cross the room to where his shirt lay tossed haphazardly over the armchair, thrown carelessly off when he’d first come in and been in rather a hurry to get between Draco’s legs.

“Draco,” said Pansy breathlessly when the door opened, eyes wide like she hadn’t really believed he would answer. “I just wanted to —” She stopped, gaze having landed on Harry, who was standing there with his shirt in his hands and looking pretty irritated with the situation. “Oh,” came out sounding even more bewildered and breathless than his name. Heat rose on her cheeks and Draco could see it — could actually _see it_ — as her eyes dipped and scanned Harry’s naked torso, could even see the telltale shimmer of arousal light up her eyes for a moment before she blinked and it was gone. “I … I didn’t realise … I’ll just …” She hitched her thumb over her shoulder, indicating what she apparently could not formulate into words.

“No, wait,” came Harry’s voice from behind him, and when Draco looked sideways he saw Harry had finally gotten his shirt on and was now just a foot back, looking at Pansy with his eyebrows drawn. “Hermione told me you’ve been avoiding her,” he said, bringing his unnervingly green gaze around to Draco. “If she’s trying to talk to you, Draco, you should at least hear her out.” 

Draco scoffed, and he saw that Pansy looked equally as thrown by this pronouncement.

“Excuse me?” he said, dropping a hand to his hip and turning a raised brow on Harry. “You know she’s the one who voted to have you handed over to the Dark Lord, right?”

“Draco!” Pansy squeaked, two hands flying up to her mouth, above which her eyes instantly filled with tears. She looked fearfully at Harry, but he wasn’t even paying attention to her anymore. He was staring at Draco with something unidentifiable making his eyes dark. Taking Draco’s arm, he pulled him gently out of earshot of Pansy.

“You should let her talk,” he said softly. “It doesn’t mean you have to forgive her … just listen to what she has to say, yeah? I’ll go take a shower, leave you two alone for a bit.”

“Why?” Draco pressed, hissing it out between clenched teeth. “You _really_ think she deserves that chance?”

“I don’t know her,” Harry said. “ _You_ , on the other hand, have been friends with her for a long time. People make mistakes, Draco. Give her a chance to prove she learned from it.”

Draco let out a world-weary sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Knowing Harry was right, and hating it all the same. Several long moments later, he nodded and went back to the door, Harry disappearing into the en suite. “Come in, then,” he said to Pansy, and shut the door behind her. He went to his bed and sat down on the edge, but Pansy stayed standing uncomfortably in the middle of the room, arms folding tightly across her chest.

“So,” she started, scanning the room like she expected to see evidence of Harry everywhere, “you two have been … he stays in here with you now?”

“Sometimes,” Draco said shortly. He gave her nothing else, and it was worth the satisfaction of watching her squirm. A moment passed, and with a put-upon sigh she came over to the bed and sat down, leaving a fair amount of space between them.

“How did he convince you to talk to me just now?”

“He’s irritatingly persuasive.” 

Pansy smiled tentatively. “Is that why you like him?”

“Are you here to probe me about my relationship?” Draco asked shortly. “Or to apologise for being a twat?”

She looked sufficiently abashed by this, the smile disappearing quickly. “I … I _am_ sorry, Draco. For going behind your back. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Right?” he scoffed. “In what universe is what you did _right_?”

“Your mother needed to know, and you were _never_ going to tell her, Draco! You always insist on doing things by yourself, and you never seem to realise that you don’t _have_ to. I just … I just wanted to help. I knew she would be able to do something more for you and I … you have to believe me, I was only doing what I thought would be best for you.”

Draco looked down at his lap, displeased by the flurry of emotion happening inside his chest. _Hormones_ , he told himself. Nothing more.

“Your intentions,” he said, “matter far less than the fact that you went behind my back to my own mother. And what makes it even worse is that you avoided me afterwards. You slunk around like a coward. If you were going to betray me like that, the least you could have done was owned up to it. _Warned_ me, so I didn’t have to find out from Slughorn at six in the bloody morning that my mother was here and knew everything.”

“You’re right,” she said immediately. “You’re absolutely right and I’m _sorry_. I am so, _so_ sorry, Draco, I swear that I am.”

“Fine.” He turned a raised brow on her. “You’re _sorry_. All right. And what about the way you abandoned me the moment you found out I was dating Harry? I suppose you’re _sorry_ about that, as well?”

She licked her lips, looking as guilty as sin and twice as miserable. “That was … I’m not proud of that. But, Draco … what if it had been me? I mean … how would _you_ have reacted? It's Potter, for Merlin's sake.  _Potter_."

“I know who he is," he said tightly. "And I wouldn’t have abandoned you."

“Really, Draco?” She raised both eyebrows, her gaze probing. “Do you actually believe that?"  
  
His teeth clenched and he had to make a conscious effort to stop picking at his nails. "Whatever, it’s a useless analogy anyway considering _I'm_ the one in love with the prat, not you." He realised a moment too late what he'd just admitted, and he saw the shock appear on her face, but he merely tightened his jaw and plowed onward. "Had _you_ started going out with him, I'd have had a _reason_ to be upset. But unless you're harbouring a secret crush on him, there's no reason for you to have utterly ostracized me other than hating something you don't understand."  
  
"But that's just it!" she said imploringly. "I _don't_ understand! It's —"  
  
"So instead of making an _attempt_ to understand," he said over her, "you, what … tossed me aside? Did it never occur to you to just ask me about it rather than acting like the rest of the morons at this school?"  
  
"You're right," she said again. There were tears misting up her eyes now. "I'm sorry, Draco. I should have talked to you about it. I was confused, I didn't know how to approach you, I just —"  
  
"Stop making excuses," he said sharply. She broke off with a click of her teeth, lower lip wobbling. "You can't apologise and make an excuse in the same breath.  Either you know what you did was wrong, or you don't. Which is it?"  
  
"I'm sorry," she said wetly. "It was wrong. What I did was wrong and stupid and there _is_ no excuse. Not for that and not for going behind your back. But I’m here now, aren’t I? I _want_ to understand. I want to make it right. I want to be there for you the way I should have been from the beginning. I don't care if it's Potter, honestly I don't. It was just so sudden, so strange. I'll make it right, Draco."

Draco watched her for several moments, waiting for a crack in the facade, except that none came. Miracle of miracles, Pansy was apparently being genuine. For just a second, the idea of telling her about the pregnancy occurred to him, but he stifled the urge. He would tell her at some point, but not now. 

“You can’t make it right,” he said. “But you _can_  try and make up for it.” She nodded vehemently and he lifted a brow at her. “Don’t _ever_ go behind my back again, Pansy. Once is bad enough, but if you do it again, I _will_ cut you out of my life for good. And the next time you presume to judge my relationship before talking to me about it, you won’t get a chance to apologise once you come to your senses.”

“I’ve learned my lesson,” she said, and even pressed a hand to her heart. “I swear to you, Draco, never again.” Her eyes were still wet and sparkling. Draco nodded and dropped his gaze to his lap, zoning in on the sound of the shower in the next room. They were silent for a few moments, until finally Pansy said in a quiet voice: “Do you really love him?”

“Yes,” he said without looking at her.

“Wow,” she breathed. “What’s it like?” 

“What’s what like?” he asked, looking up at her now with his brows drawn.

“Being in love. I never have been … and I seem to remember a thirteen-year-old Draco Malfoy claiming he would never be caught dead falling in love, either.”

A short, slightly-bitter laugh was startled out of him at the memory.

“I suppose thirteen-year-old me didn’t understand that it’s called _falling_ in love for a reason.” In the en suite, there was the sound of something dropping in the shower, followed by a muffled curse. He smiled to himself. “It’s terrifying.  _Horrifying_.  It feels like being dragged over a cliff by the ankle, kicking and screaming. And at first you think, god, this free-fall is completely exhilarating, nothing can top this. _Nothing_. That is until you remember that at some point you’re going to hit the ground.” 

She was quiet a moment, and then: "That's a very morbid analogy, Draco. I thought most people say it’s like flying. I mean, without the hitting-the-ground-and-dying part.”

He shrugged. “Whoever says that is deluded, and isn’t really in love.” 

“What in the world do you mean by that? Draco, darling, if you think things with Potter aren’t going to work out —”

“Of course it’s not going to work out,” he said. Pansy looked more confused than ever, not to mention a bit worried. “One day he’s going to remember who I am, and it’s probably going to be the day I get my real body back. He doesn’t think it’ll happen, swears it won't, but it will. And when that day comes, when Harry realises he doesn’t love me the way he thought he did … I suppose I just have to pray it doesn’t kill me.”

Pansy looked truly disturbed now. She reached for one of his hands, but he pulled it away. He might have said to her something he hadn’t said to anybody else, but he hadn’t quite forgiven her enough yet to accept her comfort. 

“Then what’s the point?” she insisted. “Merlin, Draco, what’s the point if you’re so sure it’s going to end that way?”

“Didn’t you hear me?” he said. “I said it was like being dragged off a cliff _against your will_. I have no control over the way I feel about him, Pansy. Obviously. Anyway, if there wasn’t devastation at the end, it wouldn’t be love. It would just be ... infatuation.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. That doesn’t sound like love to me, Draco.” 

He let out a frustrated sigh and pushed a hand through his hair. The water had stopped in the bathroom. “The universe is full of duality, Pansy,” he said finally. “You can’t have life without the threat of death. You can never enjoy peace if you’ve never experienced war. And you can’t know love unless its pitted against heartbreak. Love without risk isn’t love. Love is pain and heartache and it’s _irrational_. Because you’re right … what’s the point? But every time he looks at me, I don’t need a point. _That’s_ the point. To be so deluded you let yourself pretend like you’re flying, not falling, until reality catches up and it’s over and you die.” 

Pansy, horror-struck, opened her mouth to say something, but stopped when the bathroom door opened. Usually Harry just walked out in a towel, but with Pansy still in the room, he had apparently elected to dress himself.

“Er — need more time?” he asked, having seen Pansy’s face.

“No,” said Draco. It was enough for one night. “We’ve talked. I accepted her apology.”

Pansy smiled tentatively at him through watery eyes, and he gave her a small nod in response. 

“It was very gracious of him,” she said. “And I think I’m even beginning to understand … you two.” Harry looked completely nonplussed, but Draco merely rolled his eyes. Harry’s hair was damp and curly and beautiful and his eyes burned into Draco. 

Tonight would be one of those nights where he pretended they could last forever.

 

iv.

 

When Pansy was gone, Draco put away his work and went to get ready for bed. He would have been hard-pressed to focus after that confession, and he had no intention of doing poorly on his work.

Harry had a _look_ on his face when he came into the bathroom while Draco was brushing his teeth, leaning against the door jamb with folded arms and a stupid smirk. 

“I don’t know what you’re grinning about,” Draco said around the toothbrush in his mouth.

“I only wanted to say I’m proud of you for listening to her. It seems like you two worked some things out.”

“I don’t need you to be proud of me, Potter,” he said, and then spit the toothpaste out into the sink. He met Harry’s eyes through the mirror. “I did it because your golden friends are beginning to bore me. Pansy’s served her time.”

“Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re friends again.”

He came up behind Draco and wrapped his arms around him, resting his chin on Draco’s shoulder. Draco let his eyes fall closed and became hyper-aware of the storm of butterflies in his stomach.

“I love you,” Harry whispered.

Draco imagined falling off a cliff — hitting the ground — breaking every bone in his body. 

“I love you too,” he said.

 

 

 **Sunday, 11 April 1999** — **Three Months Pregnant**

 

 

i.

 

It was happening slowly, but it _was_ happening.

In only his bra, Draco looked in wonder at his reflection, one hand planted firmly on the small but definitely-noticeable bump where his flat belly had once been. Across the room, Harry sat hunched over the desk, scribbling frantically as he tried to finish an essay due the next morning.

School robes were really a blessing, Draco reflected, hand smoothing over the slightly-stretched skin. No one would notice for quite some time, maybe even not until term had ended and graduation was over with. It was only two more months, after all.

One thing, however, which was becoming increasingly unavoidable, was the size of his tits. He was wearing a bra he’d ordered only a few weeks after first being hit with the hex, and not only had he been forced to adjust its tightness, but his tits themselves were starting to spill out of the cups.

“Look at this,” he said sourly, turning this way and that to observe himself from different angles. “I’m _fat_ , Harry.”

“You’re not fat, Draco,” Harry said distractedly. His brows were furrowed in concentration, quill poised over the parchment as he looked back and forth between a textbook and his essay. “You’re pregnant.”

“Same thing.”

“Will you quit it for a second and help me with this? What’s powdered moonstone used for besides love potions?”

Heaving a great sigh, Draco left off his scrutiny and sauntered over to Harry. “What are you looking at?” he demanded, bending over the desk and pulling the texbook towards himself. “Harry, this is the wrong chapter. Powdered moonstone’s used in the Draught of Peace, look, it’s in chapter ten, you dunce.” When he tried to pull back, however, he was impeded by an arm wrapping itself suddenly around his bare waist.

“God, look at your tits,” Harry said, lifting his free hand to unabashedly cup his left breast. In the next second he had pulled Draco down onto his lap, pale legs straddling his waist, and Draco caught himself with his hands on Harry’s chest.

“Jesus, Potter!” he sniped, but when he tried to squirm away, Harry stopped him with strong hands around his waist. “Has anyone ever told you how _completely_ insufferable you are?”

“You have, many times,” Harry said, and then leaned forward to attach his mouth to the crook of Draco’s neck and shoulder. Draco bit down on his lip when Harry’s hands lifted to unclasp his bra and slid it off his arms, the gentle brush of callused fingers raising bumps on his skin.

“Maybe you should work on that then.” His voice sounded unsteady, and he could feel Harry grinning against him between sucking kisses. They trailed leisurely down to his tits, where he used one hand to squeeze the right one and scraped his teeth over a hardened nipple. “Shit … Potter, it’s _sensitive_!”

As though he hadn’t heard — or maybe because he definitely _had_ — he dropped his lips open and sucked it into his mouth, earning a high keen from Draco. It was mortifying how quickly he could feel his cunt starting to leak.

“God, you bloody _pervert_ ,” he whined, practically shivering in Harry’s lap when that hot mouth switched to his other breast and began to work on the nipple, leaving the first one wet and stiff and sensitive. 

It took all of five minutes for Draco’s pyjama bottoms to end up on the floor and Harry to pull his straining cock out of his jeans. Harry was still mouthing over Draco’s tits when he sank down onto him, and pulled off only to watch them bounce when he started lifting Draco up and down. 

Draco, bracing himself on Harry’s shoulders, gave himself over to it completely, letting Harry move him as he pleased, and crying out each time he went back to fiendishly sucking on his breasts. It was the strangest feeling, his tits moving with each vicious drop back onto Harry’s prick, but the way it seemed to drive Harry crazy was worth the any of the dysphoria he’d suffered through in the beginning, and even any lingering now.

The feeling of that thick shaft piercing into him every time Harry pulled him relentlessly down onto it sent him into an orgasm within less than a minute, and Harry didn’t stop even though he surely felt Draco squirting all over his lap.

“Harry,” he gasped, fingers digging into those sturdy shoulders, but Harry merely bit down on his nipple and kept going. He was on the edge of a second by the time Harry stopped lifting and started pumping up into him frantically, grunting into his neck, and finally came with a broken shout. Draco spilled over the edge again when he felt his cunt being flooded with hot come, and for several minutes they sat there clutching one another, his bruised tits pressed into Harry’s chest, arms looped around his neck and shivering. 

“You really like tits, huh?” he said when he’d gotten his breath back, but instead of the laugh or the grin he expected, he got an expression that was almost suspicious instead.

“Yeah, I do,” Harry said slowly. His eyes moved back and forth between Draco’s. “Not nearly as much as I like _you_ , though.”

Draco rolled his eyes as he climbed off Harry’s lap; it was the best he could do to cover up the inner turmoil that statement had provoked.

 

 

**Saturday, 15 May 1999 — Four Months Pregnant**

 

 

i.

 

Not unexpectedly, Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup.

Even less unexpectedly, it was Harry’s timely capture of the Snitch that did it.

Even Ron and Hermione — whose given names Draco had started using, Merlin help him — tried to convince him to attend the party in the Gryffindor common room afterwards, but Draco declined. It was with no ill will — he would never have begrudged Harry that celebration, and yet had no desire whatsoever to participate himself. The Gryffindors had actually begun getting used to Draco’s presence in their common room, but it still felt intrusive to be there when they were celebrating something so … _Gryffindor_.

Instead, he opted to walk around the grounds. Hogwarts’s little corner of Scotland had officially left winter behind. The warm spring breeze that drifted across the lake filled Draco with a feeling of good things to come (warm weather always did this), and it was with a contented grin on his face that he rested his palm against his growing belly, now large enough that he’d been forced to order maternity clothing from catalogues. 

Having refrained from telling his mother still, it was Harry’s gold that bought his clothing. He detested letting him do so, and yet knew he had no other choice. Even Hermione had offered to pitch in, but that was where he drew the line. What she _had_ done was helped him figure out the sizes he would need and how to order in advance, keeping in mind how quickly he would grow from here on out. 

It was seven o’clock, the sun only beginning to set in the west, when Harry joined him.

“Brought you some pumpkin juice,” he said, handing over a bottle. “Nearly brought you a butterbeer again.”

“You’ll never learn, Potter.”

“I _didn’t_ bring it, did I?” His hand slid across Draco’s back and curled around his waist. “Anyway, the alcohol content is so small the only thing that can get drunk off it is a house-elf. You’re _sure_ you can’t have any?”

“Penbroke said it’s a bad idea,” he said, turning away from the water to look at Harry. “What are you doing out here anyway, Potter? I’ve heard tell Gryffindor parties last well into the night.”

“They do. But I missed you.” 

Draco huffed out a breath, yet he was sure it did nothing to hide how utterly warm inside that statement had made him feel.

“D’you know what I’ve been thinking about lately?” he asked. Harry made a noncommittal noise as he lifted his own butterbeer to his lips. “That Patronus I never learned to do for real.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harry said. “Boothby’s not putting it on the exam, and it isn’t on our N.E.W.T.s, he would’ve told us. Besides, a lot of fully-qualified wizards can’t produce one. Wouldn’t be fair.” 

“I don’t care about the N.E.W.T.s,” he said. At Harry’s look of scepticism, he rolled his eyes. “I mean — obviously I care about my N.E.W.T.s, what I meant was that I don’t want to produce one because I think it’ll be on any exams, I just … want to be able to in general. For me. I’d like to see what it is.”

“All right.” Harry set his bottle down on the grass and pulled out his wand, motioning for Draco to do the same. “Let’s do it, then. Let’s try again.”

Draco shook his head. “I had an idea.” 

“Which is?” 

He took in a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “I’d … I’d like my old wand back.”

Harry’s face lost its humour. “You think that’s going to help?”

“Not sure,” he said, shrugging. “What I do know is that this wand doesn’t feel the same as the Hawthorne one. That one was … special. If I have that, and with some of my new — er — memories, I think I’ll be able to do it now. I really do.”

And although Harry looked like he wanted to say something, he turned right back around and headed for the castle. Draco waited with fidgeting hands, and fifteen minutes later Harry returned with Draco’s old wand in his hand. 

“You said you _didn’t_ kill him with it … right?” he asked tentatively after he’d taken it. The weight was so familiar, the _feel_ of it in his hand right in a way his new wand never had been. Green sparks flew out of the tip the instant he touched it.

“I didn’t kill him with it,” Harry assured him. “It was his own spell that killed him.” 

Draco nodded. Swallowed. He took in a deep breath and let it back out.

“You can do this,” Harry said when Draco closed his eyes. “You’ve always been able to do it.”

Feet planted apart, eyes still closed, Draco let himself become engulfed in the memory he’d chosen: the first time Harry had told him he loved him. His emotions had been running high that night, it had been just after visiting his father the last time, and maybe it was bittersweet, but god, it was the most powerful emotion he’d ever felt.

When he lifted his arm, he felt the magic flow from his whole body into the wand, like a great tidal wave of magic. He knew even before he finished saying the incantation that it was going to work this time.

It erupted from the end of his wand with so much strength it sent him reeling backwards. His eyes flew open in shock when he'd found his balance, and he was met with a sight that made goosebumps rocket up and down his arms.

A bird was flying in elegant circles before them, pearly white and fully-formed and utterly, devastatingly beautiful.

“It’s a raven,” Draco said hoarsely.

“No,” said Harry, squinting into the fading sunlight. “It’s a rook. Look at its face.” 

Draco had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but a moment later he was distracted anyhow when he noticed its ethereal wings shimmering with the barest shadow of colour when the sun hit it perfectly. Green and blue and purple.

When it disappeared he felt breathless. He looked to Harry, only to find him positively beaming with pride.

“I knew you could do it,” he said, coming closer and pulling Draco in by the hip. “And a rook suits you.”

“Why’s that?”

“There was about a week when Hermione and I were on the run without Ron that she took to bird-watching," he said, staring off into the middle-distance like he was playing it over again in his head. "She had this stupidly big book on them, and she’d always take it out when she was on watch. There was this one evening I couldn’t sleep — it was still light out, and I went to sit with her. She'd spotted a rook. I thought it was a crow, and she explained the difference to me. Not much besides the rook being a bit smaller, scruffier feathers, the bald face. I thought the bald face was really cool — it makes them really distinguishable, crows and ravens are pretty hard to tell apart. The coolest part, though,” he said, and now his smile widened, “was that rooks have this really beautiful plumage. When the light hits them just right, they just … _erupt_ into colour. And I _saw_ it. When it flew out of the tree, I saw its wings turn this greenish-blue. And I heard it laughing. _Laughing_ , I swear to god. ‘Mione told me that’s where it got its name, because of that laugh. People think they’re bad luck, but that’s because they don’t have the chance to see the rook’s real colours. It’s like … like they don’t care. The rooks, I mean. Like they’re laughing at everyone else, because they know something we don’t.” 

Draco was quiet for a moment, digesting this information. Finally, he said, “They sound made-up.”

“They do, don’t they? Sort of mythical. I saw it, though, I heard it and everything, saw its wings. And according to Hermione, they’re not usually alone, so it was a hell of a cool thing. There’s even this myth that rooks embody thought and memory. That a rook never forgets. Anyway … I guess it’s all pretty fitting, isn’t it?”

“What,” Draco scoffed, “that I laugh like a lunatic and people think I’m bad luck?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No. That people don’t understand you. That they don’t give you a chance, and if they did, they’d see how beautiful you are.”

This was something Harry did quite often: he said these really wonderful, blunt, _emotional_ things that Draco wasn’t ever sure how to digest, let alone respond to. He was learning, however, that it wasn’t a response Harry was looking for. He just … wanted him to know. 

“You forgot the most important part,” he said after a moment. Harry looked at him in question. “They’re birds. They can fly. If you can fly, no one can ever trap you.” 

He expected Harry to say something to this, but instead, he contemplated Draco silently. Finally, the hand around his waist moved to cup the side of his head, and he pulled Draco in to kiss his temple.

“You’re gonna fly again, Draco,” he said quietly.

Draco’s gut twisted when he realised that somewhere along the line, his heart had begun believing in Harry's promises in spite of his brain's furious reminder that disaster was inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting, my lovely lovely readers! I've been having SUCH a hard time writing and I don't wanna post just for the sake of posting because I've invested so, so much in this fic and I'll regret it forever if I get sloppy. To those getting impatient, I urge you to remember that each chapter is usually about 5k words (this one is nearly 6k!), so when my muse is low, it's bound to take a little longer.
> 
> Anyway, I hope this satisfies a month's worth of waiting, friends! Special thanks once again to [loveglowsinthedark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveglowsinthedark) for holding my hand and beta-ing and especially for looking it over again and again each time I add a single paragraph and become hysterical.
> 
> As always, you can find me on [Tumblr](https://lazywonderlnds.tumblr.com/) with questions or just to chat! ❤️


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